


lights out

by eyesopen



Series: trial by fire [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, And everything subsequently goes to hell in a handbasket from there, Avengers ReWrite, F/M, Home to one of the single greatest chapter titles I've ever come up with in all my time writing, In which Katniss is called on to play Avenger, Major Character Injury, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 95,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesopen/pseuds/eyesopen
Summary: "We lost Barton. We don't have Romanoff. That's two of the Avengers Initiative, down. If we need that response team—""I think you will, however, be interested to know what SHIELD has been keeping its eyes on."Desperate times call for desperate measures, so of course, the logical solution to being down two agents is to have their child take their place.





	1. the call

**Author's Note:**

> **read me please!**
> 
>  
> 
> so, a long long time ago, way back in may of 2013, i started a little story called come morning light (which i would eventually rename lights out), what you happen to be reading now, and since then, has grown exponentially into something i never expected? over the last four years, i've done something i never thought possible — write not one, but two sequels for something i've written, anticipating a third and possibly more, should my muse carry me that far. this has truly been a passion project of mine, with the hunger games and the avengers being two of the most defining fandoms throughout my teenage years, and for the last little bit, i've been incredibly inspired to continue marching forward with this series, regardless of my feelings on the respective fandoms (read: Dead and Annoying). i began this series on ffnet, and i've come to realize that while i am most comfortable with ffnet, it's not the right place to continue posting this series. i want to share this with as many people as possible, and i'm not doing that very well if i limit myself to just one platform, so, here i am! 
> 
> let me begin with a warning: this story was written in 2013/2014, meaning that it is incredibly dated. i wrote it back when i was 15, and i'm almost 20 now. my writing style has changed drastically since then, and i've always been a little intimidated posting something like this, such a large vulnerability, onto this platform since it has such astronomical expectations out of writers. but, it's called archive of our own, which insinuates it is also mine and i've got the liberty to post what i please and the supposed safety to do so? not to mention i like continuity, and if i'm going to upload one fic on here out of the series, might as well drag 'em all this way for your reading convenience. anyways, this story is incredibly dated, and while i've spent literally twenty something hours scrutinizing over every little detail of this story, editing dialogue and making it much cleaner than the original, it is still nowhere near in perfect condition, nor is it what it could be now. unfortunately, i don't have the time to dedicate to rewriting this whole saga — i'm in college, i've got other shit i want to write — and i don't really want to? it is imperfect, yes, but that's what's comfortable about it, in my opinion. so, if you are here for some mindblowingly amazing epic that is written in elegant purple prose, a vegan story by today's fic standards, i hate to be the bearer of bad news: this is not the story for you. but, if you're here for a story that feels a lot like comfort food, a story that's like a hug from nostalgia and was written by a girl that loved two truly iconic universes so much she just had to merge them together like the public at the time always wanted, then welcome. welcome with open arms.
> 
> comments for this installment as well as inferno will be monitored just for my own sake of mind, and unless i see reason for otherwise, won't be approved. however, if you do read this after all this time, please know i love you. i really do. feel free to follow me on tumblr @littlegreys or twitter @swiftleighs and yell about things with me. enjoy a blast from the past. xx

**_LOCATION: REMOTE SHIELD FACILITY_ **

_The sounds of instructions involving the ongoing evacuation sounded throughout the research facility, as one Phil Coulson stood outside, watching the skies for his boss. People moved all around him, pushing past to get the equipment out of the facility as well as themselves. Spotting a familiar light up in the sky, Agent Coulson pushed up his sunglasses to withstand looking directly into the bright light. As the helicopter slowly settled on the ground, Nick Fury and Agent Hill emerged, setting foot on the ground. Director Fury stopped momentarily to regard Agent Coulson's presence. "How bad is it?"_

_"That's the problem, sir," Coulson admitted. "We don't know."_

_Moving throughout the depths of the facility, agents Maria Hill and Coulson eagerly followed Director Fury. More people were rushing around them at a rapid pace, carrying out their own sets of orders. Coulson began to speak as they walked. "Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago," he explained, trying to keep up with the pace of the Director._

_"NASA didn't authorize Selvig to test the Tesseract," Director Fury pointed out._

_"He wasn't testing it," Coulson said. "He wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement."_

_Agent Hill's face was decorated with a look of astonishment on it after she had processed Coulson's statement. "It just turned itself on?" she asked, still in a state of disbelief._

_Her comment went ignored, as Director Fury pressed on. "What are the reading levels now?"_

_"Climbing. When Selvig couldn't shut it down, we ordered the evac."_

_"How long to get everyone out?" Fury questioned._

_"Campus should be clear in the next half hour," Coulson said._

_"Do better."_

_Agent Hill and Director Fury proceeded on into the furthermore depths of the facility, Hill following after the Director. "Sir, evacuation may be futile," she protested._

_"We should tell them to go back to sleep?" Director Fury asked, clearly mimicking the woman's statement._

_"If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance," Hill argued._

_"I need you to make sure that phase 2 prototypes are shipped out," Fury carried on._

_"Sir, is that really a priority right now?" Agent Hill asked, the strain in her voice a dead giveaway of the amount of stress she was undergoing at the moment. Director Fury stopped in his tracks, turning around to face her._

_"Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin," Fury stated, his voice harsh. "Clear out the tech below. Every piece of Phase Two on a truck and gone."_

_Hill walked past him, not bothering to ask any more questions about what they could potentially be facing. "Yes, sir."_

_Fury continued walking, until entering the lab facility where the Tesseract was being held. Scientists were running around, evidently stressed out as they tried desperately to get a hold of the reins concerning the Tesseract. "Talk to me, Doctor."_

_Doctor Erik Selvig, from behind his position at a computer, raised his head to acknowledge Director Fury's presence. "Director."_

_"Is there anything we know for certain?" Fury asked, walking over to Selvig's side._

_"Tesseract is misbehaving," Selvig said, beginning to walk off to check on other statistics._

_"Is that supposed to be funny?"_

_"No, it's not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active, she's…misbehaving."_

_"How soon 'til you pull the plug?" Fury inquired, following Selvig around the lab._

_"She's an energy source," Selvig explained. "If we turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level…" he trailed off, leaving it up to the Director to figure out the rest._

_"We've prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space," Fury prodded._

_"We don't have the harness. Our calculations are far from complete. Now she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."_

_Nick Fury locked eyes with the man. "That can be harmful." Looking around, he then turned his attention back to Selvig. "Where's Barton?" he asked._

_Selvig raised an eyebrow. "The Hawk?" Smirking, the doctor pointed up behind him to the upper levels of the laboratory. "Up in his nest, as usual."_

_From a railing where he remained stationary, watching the scene unfold below him, Clint Barton's earpiece began to make noise. "Agent Barton, report to me," Fury's call transferred in, and almost instantaneously, Barton jumped up and made his way down to where the Director was._

_The two began walking through the lab, Fury looking over at the agent. "I gave you this detail so you could keep an eye on things," he started._

_"Well, I see better from a distance," Barton quickly countered._

_"Are you seeing anything that might set this thing off?"_

_One of the NASA scientists working over by a computer, watching the Tesseract's readings, yelled in the direction of Selvig. "Doctor, it's spiking again!"_

_Stopping near the Tesseract, Barton looked down at where the cube was being currently held. "No one's come or gone. Its oven is clean. No contacts, no I.M.'s. If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."_

_"At this end?" Fury repeated._

_"Yeah," Barton said. "The cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides."_

_Just as the words left Barton's mouth, the Tesseract began to activate, unleashing a brilliant stream of blue towards the opposite end of the laboratory. It continued to shoot out, and in turn, opening the portal through space. The blinding light carried on shining as something exited the portal, before abruptly closing up. There, standing on a small platform, a silhouette stood; smoke moving away from the person. The man looked up, a sinister grin on his face as he observed his surroundings._

_"Sir," Fury called out. "Please put down the spear." The man looked down at his spear for a moment, as if questioning as though it was really there, before pointing it in Fury and Barton's direction and releasing an exploding blue light at them. Barton immediately grabbed Fury and pushed him out of the line of fire. All hell began to break loose as a few of the security guards tried firing at the man, but to no avail. Each one who aimed at him was stabbed with the spear or got another exploding wave of light sent his way. As the man made his way closer, Barton fired at him a few times before rolling out of the way as another explosion was sent in his direction._

_Poising the gun, Barton aimed and was ready to pull the trigger when the man forcefully yanked him up and onto his feet. He took Barton's hand, before uttering quietly, "You have heart." He then lifted the spear, placing the tip of it at the center of Barton's chest and watched as his mind was possessed. Barton put his gun back in his holster, staring blankly at the man._

_Director Fury quietly leant up, retrieving the Tesseract from where it was being held and slipped it into a briefcase while watching the unfamiliar man perform the same deed as he had to Barton to several other S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. Slowly standing up, Fury turns and tries to escape the lab._

_"Please don't." The voice of the man echoed out from behind him, and Director Fury stopped dead in his tracks. "I still need that."_

_Fury turned around, facing the other man. "This doesn't have to get any messier."_

_"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else," the man insisted, before a sick smile spread across his face. "I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."_

_Selvig, who was still on the ground from Loki's first explosion, stared up at him. "Loki? Brother of Thor?"_

_Fury tried to civilly reason with Loki. "We have no quarrel with your people," he said, in hopes that Loki would take that as his cue to return, all in a part of a grand misunderstanding._

_"An ant has no quarrel with a boot," Loki returned._

_"You planning to step on us?" Fury asked, his questions growing more and more short ended and harsh._

_"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free," Loki explained._

_"Free from what?"_

_"Freedom. Freedom is life's greatest lie. Once you accept that, in your heart," Loki paused, turning to face the now standing Dr. Selvig and positioned his spear over Selvig's heart. "You will know peace." Loki withdrew his spear as Selvig's mind was then his to control._

_"Yeah, you say peace," Fury began. I kind of think you mean the other peace."_

_Barton then strode over to Loki, pointing at the ceiling which was fluctuating blue from the Tesseract's activity. "Sir, Director Fury is stalling," he said. "This place is about to blow. Drop a hundred feet of raw material, he means to bury us."_

_"Like the Pharaohs of Odin," Fury replied._

_Selvig, who was standing near a computer and checking the readings of the place, nodded. "He's right; the portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes until this thing goes critical."_

_Loki looked in Barton's direction, giving him a single command. "Drop him."_

_Barton didn't reply; he wordlessly fired at Fury and sent him to the ground. With Fury down, Barton grabbed the suitcase and lead Loki, Selvig, and a few other possessed S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel out of the lab._

_Once in the parking garage of the facility, Barton pointed at a few of the vehicles lined up. "Need these vehicles," he said. Agent Hill, who was standing nearby, followed after Barton with a confused look on her face._

_"Who's that?" she asked._

_Barton merely replied, "He didn't tell me."_

_Hill watched the men load up in the vehicles with a growing suspicion inside of her. She turned, walking off in the direction of the lab as her walkie-talkie began making noise. "Hill, do you copy?" Fury's voice crackled from the other end. "Barton is…"_

_Hill's eyes widened as she quickly turned around to shoot at Barton. One step ahead, Barton already had the gun cocked in her direction, firing at the woman. Hill moved out of the line of bullets aimed her way, watching as Barton jumped into the truck and took off, Hill still firing at him. As he made his way out of the lab, Fury continued to communicate with Hill. "He's got the Tesseract. Track it down!"_

_Following the director's orders, Hill jumped into a truck and began to speed off, chasing after Loki and his minions. Managing to corner them, she began to fire in hopes that it would be enough to stop them. They finally found a way around her, pulling out and speeding off. As the laboratory caved in, Fury joined Coulson and a few other agents on a helicopter, which took off right as the place began to cave in. Hill also noticed this, as everything behind her began to give way. Speeding as fast as the car would go, she tried desperately to keep up with the hostile force but to no avail; she ended up trapped in between the rubble of the falling garage._

_Loki, Barton and Selvig made it out of the collapsing facility, pulling out right in the line of the helicopter. Fury stepped to the open side, firing at the vehicle. Loki saw his attempts and with the simple wave of his spear sent the helicopter hurtling towards the earth. Fury dropped out of the copter, landing on the ground and firing a few final shots at the escaping truck. The helicopter crashed a good ways over, dying as it sputtered on the ground._

_In the dead silence of the night, Fury reached for his walkie-talkie as Agent Coulson's voice came through. "Director? Director Fury, do you copy?"_

_"The Tesseract is with a hostile force. I have men down," Fury stated into the communication device. "Hill?"_

_Pulling herself up higher out of the seat, she looked around. "A lot of men still under," she said, trying to catch her breath. "Don't know how many survivors."_

_"Sound the general call," Fury ordered. "I want every living soul not needing rescue looking for that briefcase."_

_"Roger that," Hill replied._

_"Coulson, get back to base," Fury continued on. "This is a level seven. As of right now, we are at war."_

_There was silence on all ends of the conversation; no one knew what this meant or what would come next. Phil Coulson voiced everyone's opinion as he pressed the talk button on the side of the walkie-talkie. "What do we do?"_

* * *

"Katniss, you know you shouldn't be messing with that," Gale hissed as the brunette girl standing next to him slowly traipsed her fingers up and down the bow they'd just uncovered. He only gave it a split second before realizing she wasn't parting with it, reaching out to take the bow from her grasp. "Katniss—"

"Calm down Gale, it's just a bow!" Katniss cut him off, jerking the bow away from him and standing on the defensive. He immediately backed down, his hands slowly rising to show he meant no harm. Katniss took a deep breath before regaining her composure. "Sorry, I just…it's just a bow. It doesn't mean anything."

"Where'd you even find that?" he asked, one of his eyebrows rising out of curiosity. "I mean, it's not mine or yours, so who's could it be?"

"Not sure," she mumbled quietly, bringing the bow closer to her chest as she looked around the forest. There wasn't anything for miles; just a large expanse of woods. It was one of the things that she always loved about living in the heart of the mountains.  _No matter where you escape to, you're always within the safety of the trees. They shelter, they provide, and they give a fortress to whoever seeks it._  
  
Gale looked at her, uncertain of what she could have meant by that. He rested a hand on her shoulder gently, looking around the woods as she had only moments before. "I'm heading out; Ma will be expecting me and I don't want to break curfew," he finally sighed. Katniss simply gave him a slight nod, her eyes focused elsewhere. Gale exhaled loudly once more, slinging his game bag over his shoulder as he turned towards the way they'd entered the woods. The sound of leaves crackling underneath his feet signaled his exit, but they stopped rather abruptly. "And Katniss?" The girl took her eyes off the bow, her head lifting slowly to see his gray eyes staring at her.

"Yeah, Gale?"

"You better hide that bow with ours," he finally said, before letting his head fall again and disappearing within the trees once more.

It was no question that Gale and Katniss had grown close after her father's death. After his funeral, she managed to escape into the woods in a blind rage, tears clouding her vision as she'd collapsed on a fallen log. Gale shortly appeared thereafter; turned out he wasn't the only person who thought the woods a safe haven after all. He hunted a lot in the woods, mostly for game. With his mother out of work and caring for three other children and a father who died in the same mining explosion as Katniss' father, he was the breadwinner for their family. He sold his game to people around town in which the two of them lived and it usually did pretty well, considering its small size and complete isolation from the rest of civilization. While Katniss' father showed her how to use a bow and arrow, Gale was the one who taught her how to shoot; he always complimented her skills and told her what a natural she was. Eventually, she started hunting for survival means, the two of them selling the game they killed together and always divvying up the makings between the two of them as equally as possibly.

Gale was her only friend and Katniss would tell anyone that in a heartbeat; whenever she went to school, people thought her a mute or above everyone else since the only person she ever gave the time of day was Gale. He was two years older than her, so she'd only see him at certain points during the school day. The mayor's daughter, Madge, was the only other exception, seeing as how her father was willing to pay up front for the wild strawberries that grew out here in the woods. She was the only other peer Katniss could tolerate, but she was a last resort at best.

It was simple, why she chose to be antisocial. Not only was Katniss one of those miner's daughters,  _those_  miners, the ones that died in that mine explosion; but she fell victim to a few nasty rumors ever since she could remember. Living in a smaller-than-small town, people talked and it spread fast, not to mention it stuck for a long time. She'd grown up as an only child, and due to the isolation of District 12 to modern society, there was no true way to know whether or not she was really her parent's child or not. There was always a part of her that knew that there was a great possibility, if not fact that she had been adopted or taken in or whatever crazy scenario that might have entailed her ending up where she was judging by the way genetics ruled. But, for the sake of her sanity, she merely chose to ignore the talk, held her head up and went about life like there was no question of who she was. Anyone who brought it up – namely, the whole town – found themselves on the receiving end of her infamous freezing-outs. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Katniss ran her fingers up and down the frame of the bow a few more times absentmindedly, sighing. Whoever had left this bow had left a damn good tool behind, for which she was grateful. Toying around with the bow slightly, she held it up as though she was preparing to fire. Her fingers messed with the string, pulling it back before releasing it. The sound it made was a lot stiffer, and she could feel the pull back a lot more, seeing as how the bow was tighter than her own.

Lowering the bow, she took a quick glance at the sky. The sun was already beginning to set, and that meant curfew was approaching rapidly. Katniss straightened out her jacket, beginning to make her way back over to a small hole in the ground that was covered by a thin veneer of leaves. In it rested the two bows and quiver of arrows that belonged to both her and Gale. Adding the new addition in the hole as she laid it across the other two before pushing the leaves back over it, Katniss kissed the woods goodnight and made her way back home.

* * *

"Sir?" Agent Coulson made his way up to where the Director was stationed, his hands firmly grasped behind his back. Nick Fury turned to face the agent, his face emotionless. Coulson took that as his cue to continue. "We've got a problem."

"We've got a lot of those at the moment, Agent," Fury said as he stepped down to Coulson's level. "What kind of problem?"

Coulson swallowed hard. "I compiled the files for when we talk to Stark like you asked. But there was something that came up that sort of throws the whole plan off kilter." He fell silent, before Director Fury’s burning glare prompted him to continue. "Sir, you do realize Agent Romanoff was supposedly killed in action over five years ago; there hasn't been any sign of her since?"

"You want me to believe that Natasha Romanoff, the famous Black Widow, was supposedly killed in action? I've heard bullshit before, Coulson, but none like this. Find her," Fury said after barking out a scathing laugh, turning to walk back up to his command station.

"Director, this is Natasha. You know her better than anyone else. If she was alive, if she knew about Barton being compromised, she would be here. We all knew about their bond; if she was the left hand, he was the right. Sir, if Agent Romanoff was alive, then SHIELD would have found a way to communicate with her."

Fury stopped, slowly swiveling back around and walking back up to Coulson. "We lost Barton. We don't have Romanoff. That's two of the Avengers Initiative down. If this Loki means to bring about war, if we  _need_  that response team—"

"I think you will, however, be interested to know about what SHIELD has been keeping its eyes on," Coulson said as he retrieved a quite thick file from inside his jacket, handing it over to Fury.

Fury's lips spread out into a thin smile as he opened up the file, looking at the top page of contents. "Thank you, Agent."

Before making his exit, Coulson gave the director a twisted half smile. "Sir?" Fury's gaze left the file and focused on the agent in front of him. "You should know something about this…situation before you jump into it headfirst. If and when we get Barton back—when he finds out that we went through with this, he's going to personally kill you."

* * *

The sun peeked through the tops of the trees, whispering a soft good morning like it seemed to almost every single day Katniss came out. Sundays were her days with Gale, out alone in the woods and having only one other to entertain as company. Sundays were her day of solace, day of peace. Katniss readjusted her position sitting on the tree branch, staring at the forest floor long enough to lose her train of thought.

The sound of leaves rustling caught her attention, a thin smile spreading across her face.  _Gale's here._  She jumped down from her perch, letting her arm brush down against her side as she strolled in the direction of the same path through which they’d enter the forest. "About time, Gale!" she called out teasingly. She was met with no reply, just the sound of the leaves on the ground crunching under someone's feet growing nearer. "Gale?" This time, it seemed to be more of a warning call as Katniss craned her head, looking around to see who it could be. If it had been an animal approaching, her voice would have scared it off and she knew it.

Out of pure instinct, she silently pulled an arrow from her quiver and in one swift motion, drew back, ready to shoot. She stood motionless against the trunk of a tree, waiting for her predator to emerge from the small thicket away. Katniss began to count her breaths, a trick Gale had taught her to keep her patient and silent while waiting for game when she was first starting out.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, a tall man, dressed in all black and wearing an eye patch walked straight through the undergrowth and into the clearing, stepping right into her line of fire and his uncovered eye locked dead on the arrowhead aimed for his chest. He chuckled to himself, but she kept the bow and arrow where they were; poised to kill.

"Who the hell are you?" she finally asked, her voice thick and distorted in defense mode.

"Nick Fury; you can call me Director," the man replied. "It's nice to finally meet you, Miss Everdeen."

The way he said her last name was almost as if it was a joke to him, but she instead tried to focus on the more important things, like the fact that there was a strange man with an even stranger name in front of her who knew exactly who she was and how to find her. "How did you—"

"Find you?" he finished, another laugh escaping his lips. "It wasn't that complicated. You see, Miss Everdeen, it's impossible for you to be found when you were never lost." His words sank in slowly, and they stirred inside of Katniss, registering as the fact that she'd been watched, watched for much longer than she could have ever really imagined.

"That doesn't explain how you know me," she said again, her index finger resting on the arrow beginning to twitch. "It doesn't explain anything. It just gives me even more reason to shoot."

"Miss Everdeen, I'd love to sit around and have this lovely chat, but there's no time for it. I need for you to come with me, and I need for you to come with me now." She opened her mouth to argue, but Fury dismissed it with the wave of his hand. "Surely you'd like to know about your real parents," he said, and he knew he'd struck a chord by the bewildered look on Katniss' face staring back.

She contemplated that thought for a moment. She was presented with a simple ultimatum and one he clearly knew was going to strike a chord; leave behind everything; everything she knew and loved in order to find out about something that could very well be a cruel joke, or stay here and face a whole lot of nothing, save for the occasional deer.

Katniss lowered the bow, removing the arrow and putting it back into the quiver that she swiftly swung over her shoulder. "Lead the way," she said, pointing in the direction that Nick Fury had come. He said nothing else, just led her off wordlessly into god only knew what was awaiting her.


	2. the test

Being from an incredibly small town where cars weren't even considered necessary, Katniss had never been in a plane before. She’d never really seen a plane, when she thought about it. It probably didn't help too much that this plane was currently going higher than most normal planes should, but then again, she wasn't on much of a normal mental track at the moment. In her head, she was trying to figure what crazy impulse she had jumped on, and why the hell she'd even acted on it.  _You left without a trace, like you never even existed in the first place._

Her mind began to drift off elsewhere as the silence invaded her mind. She wondered how many missing papers would go out, if any. She wondered what the story would be behind her disappearance, if she’d be another legend told to the children of Twelve as their bedtime story. She wondered if Gale would tear those woods apart looking for her, wondered what her mom would do now that she was gone. The only reason she was of any use or want in that house was because she could provide food. Katniss was able to take care of them in the way her father had leading up to his death, and her mother had latched onto that the minute she realized her daughter was capable of shooting a bow and arrow. Katniss and Gale had always had a standing promise that if anything were to happen to one of them, the other was to take care of the family they left behind. That promise flashed to the forefront of Katniss' mind, the only reassurance she was able to find amidst the entire situation she’d placed herself into. She was unsure of what she was supposed to feel—terror, worry, hope, freedom all resonated somewhere in her, but the most dominant feeling was that of shock, her head reeling as she tried to come to terms with the fact she'd just left her entire life behind at the drop of a hat.

Her nails digging into the flesh of her thigh through the fabric of her pants as she tried to steady her breathing, Katniss looked around the small plane. There were only a few others accompanying her and Fury, all of whom were decked in black and had military grade guns within arm’s reach. She didn't bother to ask any questions; it would have probably proved futile and it wasn't as though she would have been able to spit words out with her mouth feeling as though it had been stuffed with cotton balls. Besides, she wasn't even sure what the first thing she'd ask would be.

One of the men on the plane presented Fury with an apparently rather logical question for their world, Katniss repeating it over in her mind. "Director, have you established who's taking care of Banner and Cap?" The names they’d thrown around were merely entities as far as Katniss was concerned, and her head snapped in the direction of the man with the eye patch to see what his response would be.

"Not sure yet; we have to report back to base, fuel up and find out if Coulson's moving forward on Stark. And besides," Fury said, his attention trailing over to where Katniss was sitting, rather rigid in her seat. "There are a few things Miss Everdeen needs to know before we make it to base."

The way that the words came tumbling out of Fury's mouth might as well have been ice water being injected into her veins as the numbing sensation of panic rushed throughout her, digging her nails a little deeper into her thigh. "No need to panic, Miss Everdeen—"

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she finally intervened, her voice smaller than normal and wavering ever so slightly. Fury raised an eyebrow in question, and Katniss shrugged. "You said that you know about my parents; my real parents, anyways. If that's true, then why do you keep calling me Miss Everdeen?"

"Now is not the time or place to discuss those things, so for the time being, you'll have to be patient with me. Can you do that?" he asked, and Katniss nodded solemnly, even if it wasn’t satisfying in the slightest. Turning to face her head on, Fury folded his hands and dropped them in his lap. "I need for you to be completely honest with me when I ask what I’m about to. There are lives on the line here, a lot of them, and hiding the truth from me is not going to help them. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

Fury reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, black device, tapping and scrolling on it several times before turning it around to show the picture that had been pulled up. On it was a giant, glowing blue cube that looked as though it had some sort of clearly-imitated constellation on the inside. "Do you know what this is, Miss Ev—I mean, Katniss?"

Katniss' eyebrows furrowed together as she shook her head. "No. What the hell is that, anyways?" she asked, leaning forward to get a better look at the picture. Fury handed her the thing, allowing her to zoom in on the picture. She held it with the steadiest hands she could muster, getting a feel for it all while trying not to drop it.

"That is a form of energy we've recently acquired—"

"Wait, you said we, who's we?" Katniss replied, her eyes lifting away the picture.

"Patience. We're getting there. As I was saying, this is a form of alien energy that we've gotten our hands on and have been trying to stabilize in order to further discover what uses my…particular agency can make from it. It's called the Tesseract. As of recently, we’ve lost possession of it."

"Alien energy? That your  _particular agency_  has lost possession of?" The obvious skepticism in Katniss' voice was plain as day as she handed Fury back his device. He nodded in affirmation. "So why am I here then?"

"I figured we could help each other out. You help me and my colleagues locate this Tesseract, I'll help you find your parents."

"You said you knew who they were, not that you had to find them first."

"Are you in or not, Miss Everdeen?"

A moment passed of Fury and Katniss staring at one another, waiting for the other to cave. "When do we get started?" Katniss sighed, her shoulders slouching as she accepted her defeat. A particularly twisted smile formed on Fury's face as he rested a hand on Katniss' fallen shoulders.

"Tell me, have you ever learned how to shoot a gun?"

* * *

Whatever it was that Katniss had managed to get herself into, it was one hell of a situation. Having to learn how to hit a target with a weapon she'd only heard horror stories about for the first time ever in a moving plane was quite the experience, one she was glad she had under her belt and would never have to experience again. They'd been up in the air for quite some time, so it allotted her a little practice time to get used to how a gun felt in her hand as opposed to her weapon of choice and what felt most comfortable when shooting. What she wasn't comfortable with though, was what Fury had told her she was to do whenever they landed on base.

Fury had explained he worked for a government agency that managed to stay off her radar despite the fact she lived in in a near isolated town called SHIELD, and that they were currently dealing with a Level 7 situation, whatever the hell that happened to be. Either way, he explained that in a high critical situation, new faces weren’t exactly a welcome sight. Most members of SHIELD underwent a series of tests and training before officially being granted clearance, polygraphs and all sorts of other terrifying things, but they didn’t have the time to clear Katniss in the same manner. The only way she could establish any sort of trust on board was through what Fury called the flinch test, which sounded like a downright fucking joke to her. The gist of it was relatively simple: Katniss would walk off the aircraft and through the hangar, a gun tucked in the waistband of her pants. She’d garner attention, surely, and chances were, she’d be met with a gun in her face. She figured that was normal; when you work for the government, you trust no one and no one trusts you either. Katniss would have to withstand the pressure, maneuver her way through the high-stress situation and hold her own. If she caved, tried to talk her way through it, she was out. She had to prove herself to Fury and to whoever else was waiting on her that she was capable of this. Apparently, allowing herself to be willingly abducted wasn’t enough proof.

"Alright Katniss, you're up to bat," Fury said as the plane landed on what Katniss had also been informed was base—a Helicarrier. "Remember, you can't be afraid to pull your own weapon out and hold it up to them. It's your life at risk, you have to be able to defend yourself. They will shoot unless you show them you're not backing down."

"Right, got it."

"And remember—"

"Shoot straight. I know."

"Hopefully you won't have to." The sounds of the plane cutting off flooded Katniss' ears, a silence that was none too welcoming. A few of the other people on board gave her a curt nod as some form of encouragement while she tucked the gun into her pants, yanking the back of her shirt down over it.  _This is so fucking stupid,_  she thought to herself as she smoothed her flyaway hairs down. The door opened, Katniss took a deep breath and started to walk down the corridors of the hangar, her eyes targeting on the closest door. With every step, the weight of the gun seemed to grow heavier and heavier and press harder into the small of her back. She glanced down only for a second—Fury had told her to keep her head held up in order to not draw attention right off the bat—just to see her hands trembling.

 _Get it together,_  she scolded herself as she continued to walk on.  _What would Gale say? He'd tell you you're being dumb, childish, like you've never done anything a little risky before. That you're not even thinking, you're barely_ breathing _. You're scared to death and there's not a damn point in it. This is a test of bravery and you're failing. You're not being rational, you're moving on too much knowledge when you need to be moving off instinct. It's like shooting a deer or turkey—you have once chance and once chance only, so suck it up, count your breaths, and shoot straight._

Gale's words carried Katniss right over the threshold of the door she'd passed through, and she thanked her lucky stars that she'd made the decision to square her shoulders back and take it seriously at the time she did, because she heard the click of a gun no sooner had both feet stepped over.

"Who are you?" a woman's voice said, rough and very authoritative. In the light, Katniss could see the gun as well as the woman holding it; her hair was up in a tight bun, eyes cold and fixated right on Katniss.

"You first." Katniss knew she'd never been one who could bluff too terribly well, if at all. Sometimes, she and Gale would sit in the woods and play what little bit of poker they knew with their own impromptu chips and no rational bet, since money was never an option. Gale always taunted her at having the worst poker face, because he knew when she was lying every single time. The sound of her steely voice coming out of her own throat surprised her slightly, that she could even muster up that kind of sheer courage. _You’ve got a reason to be tough._

"No, I asked _you_ first. Tell me who you are or I shoot," the woman said, her teeth gritting together. Clearly, Katniss was either stalling or really pissing her off. She just hoped that this wasn't one of the trigger happy ones that Fury had all too horrifyingly shuddered back on when telling Katniss about the test. Not wanting to take the chance, Katniss slowly pulled her own gun from the back of her shirt, moving it off safety and holding it by her side.

"Katniss Everdeen, I’m with SHIELD,” she replied with the same nonchalant voice, subconsciously tightening and readjusting her grip on the handle of the gun, her finger hovering shakily over the trigger in case she needed to jump.

"I know every agent in the SHIELD records, I know every person who’s going to come within spitting distance of this compound, and not once have I heard of a Katniss Everdeen."

"You still didn’t tell me who _you_ are."

"Maria Hill, someone who’s _actually_ with SHIELD," she responded without even batting an eye.

At that moment, Fury kicked the door behind Katniss wide open, causing her to jump slightly. Hill lowered her gun, looking slightly relieved to see him standing there. "She’s with you?"

"I didn’t have time to brief you and she needed to establish some ground around here since she’s getting a late start,” Fury said dryly. “Hill, this is Everdeen, are you pleased now?”  Hill rolled her eyes, but only Katniss caught it and tried to stifle the laugh that came up in the back of her throat. "Good. I need for you to make sure that bird I just got off of is well fueled and ready to take off in ten; the Council is apparently on the line and frankly, I'm not in the mood."

"Yes sir," Hill replied, tucking her gun into its holster. Fury whirled off, leaving Katniss standing in the middle of the small hallway. Passing by her on her way out, Hill rested a hand on Katniss' shoulder. "Welcome to SHIELD.”

As Hill walked out the opposite doorway, Katniss nodded to herself. "Thanks, I think."

* * *

"This is out of line, Director. You're dealing with forces you can't control."

"You ever been in a war, Councilman? In a firefight? Did you feel an over-abundance of control?"

Pressing her back against the wall, Katniss leaned her head in ever so slightly to see what was going on. All she could see was Fury standing in front of what seemed to be a control panel, with large panels resting on the wall with what she assumed to be the live feed of the Council he'd been referring to. She'd been left to her own devices, unsure of where she was supposed to go, and she wasn't looking for another fun adventure in a SHIELD trust exercise—that had already made her give a mental knock to her own abilities and thrown her for a bit of a loop, even if she’d apparently passed. So, of course, the only logical solution was to tail Fury and see where he was off to. She figured it wouldn't kill to get a few answers as well.

One of the shadowy figures on the panel spoke, causing her to snap her head back against the wall, trying to keep her breathing quiet and not get caught. These people were probably the kind whose sixth sense was knowing when an unwanted presence was among them. "You saying that this Asgard has declared war on our planet?" they said, Katniss' eyebrows furrowing together as she listened in.

 _Asgard,_ she thought to herself. _What the hell is an Asgard?_

"Not Asgard. Loki," Fury replied.  _Great, even more names. Planets and potential aliens and stolen energy sources—really Katniss, what_ did _you get into?_

"He can't be working alone. What about the other one? His brother." The voice of a persistent Councilman echoed out onto the hall, and Katniss couldn't fight the eye roll that was coming on. Things couldn't possibly get any more asinine, but she'd been proved time after time in the past few hours that they could, and they would.

"Our intelligence says Thor is not a hostile. But he's worlds away, we can't depend on him to help either. It's up to us."

"Which is why you should be focusing on Phase Two, it was designed for exactly—"

"Phase Two isn't ready, our enemy _is_. We need a response team," Fury insisted, and that caught Katniss' attention clearly. Response team didn't sound as strange as the other planet and the brothers that called it home, but just as intriguing.

"The Avengers Initiative was shut down," the first Councilman claimed.

"This isn't about The Avengers," Fury protested. It was now crystal-clear to Katniss that Fury was very persistent and was either always looking for some sort of argument to fully invest himself in, or was completely and maybe a little too overly confident in his beliefs. She wasn’t quite sure if she admired it or if she found it vexing.  

The voice of the first Councilman filled the room once more, this time his statement breezy and meant to dismiss the subject of the Avengers, whatever the hell that was. Frankly, Katniss didn't even know what to think about anything anymore, thanks to everything that she'd been shown over the course of the past few hours. "We're running the world's greatest covert security network and you're gonna leave the fate of human race to a handful of freaks."

"I'm not leaving anything to anyone," Fury said. "We need a response team. These people may be isolated, unbalanced even, but I believe with the right push they can be exactly what we need." Inching forward slightly on her heels, Katniss lowered her head in the direction of the doorway a little more.

"You  _believe_?"

"War isn't won by sentiment, Director," the Councilman warned Fury.

"No. It's won by soldiers."

"We'll continue this at a later date, Director. In the meantime, find this Loki and retrieve the Tesseract, or we will be forced to intervene."

"Understood, Councilmen," Fury said, the hints of an underlying sarcasm in his voice as he disconnected the chat. "Miss Everdeen, did no one ever tell you that it's not considered proper to spy on people while they're having conversations with people—dumbasses, but people nonetheless?"

The color rushing to her cheeks as she gave up on attempting to flatten herself against the wall, Katniss stepped fully into view in the doorway. "I wasn’t watching you, so I don’t think spying’s the right word you’re looking for. Eavesdropping’s more accurate.” Fury shook his head.

"Regardless, if any one of those Council members saw you, I would have been ordered to lodge a bullet in your brain."

"Well, they didn't see me, and they're not here now, so I'd say we're in the clear."

"You like to push limits, don't you, Miss Everdeen?"

"I don’t follow anyone’s orders by my own," she responded coolly. Fury simply raised an eyebrow before gesturing towards the door with the tilt of his head.

"Come with me; I’m probably right in assuming you’ve got even more questions to ask after that. Besides, I think you'll be very interested in who you'll soon be in the presence of," he said rather confidently as he led the way out.

Katniss only hoped that it wasn't one of the crazy Asgardian brothers, because if it was, she was really and truly in for it.


	3. the soldier and the doctor

Even if she didn't like reading much nor was it a strong suit of hers, Katniss had no choice in reading the particularly lengthy files that Fury had handed her the minute they took off from the Helicarrier. It was a good thing she didn't get motion sickness all that easily. So far in all of her reading material, she'd been faced with a narcissistic engineer, the Asgardians—and apparently, Asgard wasn't just a few miles from Canada either; a gamma radiation exposure gone horribly, horribly wrong (and green), and the thawed out super soldier. Katniss wasn't sure who the hell she wanted to deal with first. They all seemed like hard pills to swallow, cases she didn't want to immerse herself waist deep in, and yet Nick Fury was dragging her out to sea with him.

Fury informed her that they were going to pick up the soldier, Steve Rogers. After that she'd be dropped off back at the Helicarrier so Fury could go grab the man with the wonderful anger management problems all the way out in Kolkata. "So what is it that I'm supposed to go in and do? Am I just serving as some sort of sidekick?" Katniss asked, closing the file on Rogers and her eyes as well; she'd be a liar if she said that the whole reading at several thousand feet up wasn't making her head spin.

"Who knows, maybe bringing along a pretty woman like yourself will sway his decision," Fury said in a rather disinterested voice. Katniss rolled her eyes.

"If we were trying to seduce him into coming along, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't still have me stuck in this outfit," she pointed out, gesturing down to her black t-shirt and pants. "And besides, if he's as stuck out of time as you say he is, I don't think any kind of seduction will sway him. Weren’t they into chivalry back in the twenties?"

Fury let a small sigh out, swiveling to where he was fully facing Katniss, his hands dropping into his lap. "I just want for you to go in and meet who you're going to be working with on finding the Tesseract. Better you have at least one familiar face, and I'm sure he could use the same," Fury explained. Lifting an eyebrow, Katniss stared at him quizzically. She'd only been around him for a few hours, but it was extremely obvious when he was omitting information. Exhaling noisily once more, Fury shrugged. "And since you're taking the place of two of my originals, I figured it wouldn't kill for me to take you in to meet him. So there's no confusion."

"Two of your originals?" Katniss asked.

"We had some issues…getting two of the original people on board that we'd had set to help find the Tesseract if this issue ever came about, so you turned up a good alternative."

"Why's that?"

"Sir, we're here," the pilot stated, and Fury rose at the sound of that, saved by the cue. Katniss sat the file on Rogers down, her eyes still fixed on Fury.

"Where are we?"

"Miss Everdeen, you’ll find out quickly that location is merely like a schedule: it's very flexible, so there's no reason in knowing it." Another thing she’d figured out about Fury right out of the gate was that he always sounded like a fortune cookie or a cryptic omen. It also happened to irritate the living shit out of Katniss, but she swallowed it down despite the bitter aftertaste. If Gale were here, he'd tell her to suck it up. This was her life now, it seemed. _What a life, chasing after a bunch of people who probably shouldn't exist in any normal world alongside a guy who looks like a pirate and speaks only in vague._

The cargo hold ramp slowly lowered down, allowing Fury and Katniss to both exit. She could feel her newly awarded gun banging against her thigh in a foreign manner, making her feel a little more powerful than she was unarmed. Fury then held out another manila file folder, something that Katniss was about sick of. "Here," he said, placing it in her hands. "You can be the delivery girl if you need an actual purpose in order to go in."

Biting back her tongue proved to be a tricky effort, but she managed as they passed over the threshold of the gym that they had been dropped off at. "Fair warning," Fury said as they began making their way down the hall. "He's been asleep for seventy years and they took him off ice not too long ago, so if you plan on smarting off with him, be gentle. He's not lost any of that strength he got from the serum." Katniss gave a short nod, readjusting her fingers hold on the folder.

According to the file on Rogers, he'd been picked for an experiment back in the midst of World War II to become the world's first super soldier. He'd been a tiny, scrawny kid who could barely tip the scale at ninety pounds when soaking wet and by the time Dr. Erskine injected him with the serum he had developed to accomplish their goals, Steven Rogers was taller, stronger, faster and more powerful than most guys out on the front lines. The last time that anyone had heard from the guy, he was taking a suicide dive into the Arctic in order to keep some weapon from detonating on the plane he was flying. That was all the information that she'd been told she needed to know. Katniss figured that this was a good way to get into all this; by being on a need to know only basis, she wouldn't be pulled into the situation she had found herself in back on the Helicarrier, listening in on conversations that sounded more like exaggerated bedtime stories of monsters and magic.

The sounds of a repetitive dull thud reverberated down the hallway, growing louder the closer they approached. Fury looked over at Katniss only for a second. "Just follow me," he instructed, and Katniss had no choice but to obey, still trying to scope out the situation for herself.

Not many things could truly startle Katniss. She was a hunter—it was her way of life, and being easily startled meant the difference between having a meal and going hungry. However, the sound of the punching bag breaking off the chains and shooting across the room right as they entered the doorway caused her to jump. "Everything alright, agent?" Fury asked, and Katniss nodded, her composure returning to her almost instantaneously.

"Fine," she replied stiffly.

Fury tilted his head in what appeared to be contemplation, as if he was questioning if she really was okay, before stepping foot over the threshold of the gym space Rogers was occupying, hanging up a new punching bag. The one that he had sure enough busted was lying across the way in a small pool of sand, completely useless. "Trouble sleeping?" Fury asked, taking a stride ahead of Katniss to establish his lead.

Her eyes locking on Steve Rogers was not the worst thing they'd ever done to her. He was easy on the eyes; that much was for sure. Glistening with sweat, muscles bulging out of his white shirt matched with the face of his that she hadn't really been able to find much to say about—all of it made her briefly question why she wasn't more boy crazy like some of the girls she'd known back at home.  _Because they don’t make them like they make Steve Rogers back in Twelve._

Continuing to punch the bag, Rogers' voice shook Katniss out of her trance. "I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill," he responded. Katniss kept a good distance between her and Fury, walking slowly so she was able to take in as much of him and the vibe he was emitting as she could before he noticed she was even there—he didn’t seem to be very attentive, but then again, she'd heard she was particularly talented at sneaking up on others.

"Then you should be out celebrating, seeing the world."

"I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, and they say we won. They didn't say what we lost," Rogers replied, pulling away from the punching bag. No sooner had he done that had his eyes stumbled upon Katniss. "Who's this?"

"Never m—"

Rogers held up a hand in Fury's direction, slowly advancing towards Katniss. "Steve Rogers," he said.

"Katniss Everdeen."

"Pleasure to meet you ma'am." The tone of his voice had changed slightly, a small smile on his face.

Katniss gave a small nod in his direction, the ghost of a smile on her face and nothing more. "You too."

Rogers turned back to face Fury, the particularly steely and closed off edge to his voice returning as he pointed over his shoulder at a Katniss who was trying to make her way around so she was somewhat physically in on the conversation. "SHIELD agent?"

Katniss slid into place beside Fury, her eyes burning in the side of his head as if to tell him no. "Long story, really, one that you can hear later on," Fury dismissed, waving his hand about.

"You two here with a mission, sir? Rogers asked, his gaze shifting back and forth between Katniss and Fury.

"I am."

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it."

Fury tilted his head at Katniss, who was currently sizing up Rogers, arms folded over her chest. She stepped forward, handing Rogers the file before stepping back, resting up against the boxing ring to give a little distance between her and the two other men who were evidently already acquainted with each other. He sat down, finishing taking off his hand wraps as he opened up the file. "HYDRA's secret weapon," he mumbled.

Katniss' ears perked at the sound of that, her head lifting with intrigue. "HYDRA?" she asked.

Rogers mimicked her actions, eyes glancing at Fury. "That’s not on page one of the handbook? Is this how SHIELD trains their finest these days?" he fired back.

"And again, another story for another day." Fury pointed down at the file, where a picture of the Tesseract was staring up at all of them. "Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think; the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

"Who took it from you?" Rogers asked.

"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me." Katniss had to hold back the snort that was quickly rising towards releasing; clearly this guy hadn’t done much of seeing anything in the world since coming off the ice. She’d only been out in it for a few hours and was eating those very words herself.

 **"** Ten bucks says you're wrong," Fury replied, and a small part of Katniss wanted to add in on that bet, before Fury steamrolled over her chances. "There's a debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment." It seemed that Rogers didn't care too terribly much, because he was too busy hoisting a punching bag over his shoulder.

Rogers began to make his way on out of the gym, Katniss watching him closely. "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?" Fury tried one final time, watching along with Katniss as Rogers passed them by.

"Should have left it in the ocean."

As soon as Rogers was gone, Katniss spoke. "I think the Arctic froze more than just his body."

* * *

"Miss Everdeen, you're needed on the deck to greet Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner," the comm link in her ear buzzed. Throwing a leg off the bunk that she'd taken slight refuge in, even if it had only been for a few sleepless hours, Katniss grabbed the gun that she'd placed on one of the racks above the bed. There was no chance in her needing it, of course, but with the recent possession of a gun lead to the feeling of needing to have it on her at all times. It gave her a little of the same security her bow did, especially being in a situation that still felt a little hostile. “We take off in fifteen, you’ll want to be inside before we do. Air gets thin, after all.”

"Copy," Katniss responded as she made her way out of the bunks towards the deck entrance. She assumed that Fury had gotten the gamma-exposure guy, Banner to comply and come in; she wasn't too terribly sure of the circumstances, seeing as how she was still trying out her strictly need to know policy. All that she did know was that a man with that kind of repercussion coming from anger wasn't a good variable to add to the already tense mix.

She'd had absolutely no sleep whatsoever, even though Fury had instructed her once they'd landed back on the Helicarrier to rest up due to the busy day they had ahead of them. It was kind of hard for her to go to sleep being on a giant floating ship over god only knew where (she wasn't a fan of Fury's philosophy on location) with the knowledge that her whole life at the moment was up in the air. She was just waiting on it to hit the ground and let the pieces scatter, so she'd at least know where to begin. It was weird, not being at home with Gale, in the midst of a routine. She didn't really know what she was doing on the ship, other than doing what she was told in the hopes of getting what she’d came for. So far, not working out too well.

Walking down the halls, Hill all but flew past her before grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around. "Do me a favor and tell Coulson to report to the bridge once you see him, we need him," she instructed. Katniss simply nodded as she swiveled back in her previous direction, continuing on. She'd only been on board for a day or so, but ever since her little test, Hill had seemed to put her trust in her. A few other people had, but then again, her interactions had been relatively limited since arrival.

The rush of wind and the smell of salt water hit her directly in the face as she pushed open the door to the entrance, the loose tendrils from her braid flying around in the air. The ocean was a new beast to her, and she’d had mixed feelings on it ever since they’d settled into the water. It wasn’t her usual forest and mountain terrain, which she certainly had more of a penchant for after experiencing both.

The Quinjet that was carrying Coulson and Rogers was in the middle of landing, Katniss starting her walk over to meet it. By the time she'd made it over, the cargo hold ramp was lowering to reveal both of the men she'd been looking for. A tight lipped smile spreading over her lips, she nodded in the direction of Rogers, who had caught notice of her, as her small greeting. "Captain," she said.

"Ma'am."

Coulson joined their conversation, mirroring the small nod Katniss had given Rogers. "Miss Everdeen.”

"Coulson, you're needed on the bridge; not sure what for, Hill claimed it was important." He clapped a hand down on Katniss' shoulder before walking off; something that had to be a sign of gratitude.

Rogers then took it upon himself to initiate even more conversation between them, something that Katniss knew she was horrible at and internally groaned at once he opened his mouth. "I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot the other night, Fury doesn't exactly—"

"Bring out the best in people?" Katniss replied, one of her eyebrows lifting as she finished the Captain's sentence. He shrugged in response, a sheepish smile decorating his face. "It's okay. I'm not much of the whole…conversational type of person myself." Things fell awkwardly silent as they slowly walked around the deck, something that Katniss had wished she'd prevented in the first place.  _Now's probably a good time to start becoming someone else, Katniss. You can't be your usual bitter, antisocial self here. You have to gain the trust of these people, people who could probably kill you by snapping their fingers. You’ve got shit to do and they’re your only key to getting it._ Clearing her throat, Katniss attempted at carrying on their conversation. "Um, you know, ever since I got here, all the buzz seemed to be about finding you on that ice."

"Oh yeah?" he replied.

Nodding, Katniss continued. "I thought Coulson would have swooned; he hasn't stopped talking about his Captain America trading cards ever since we got past the formalities. Did he ask you to sign them?"

"Trading cards?"

"They're vintage, he's pretty proud," Katniss shrugged.

"Interesting. When did you get here, anyways?" he asked.

"Yesterday."

Katniss could see his mouth open to say something else, but the sight of the even more uncomfortably placed and awkward Dr. Banner standing in the middle of hustle and bustle caught both of their attentions. He wasn’t hard to pin; he looked exactly the same as he had in his file photograph, right down to the dress shirt. "Dr. Banner," Rogers called out, hopefully catching his notice.

The doctor's head lifted as he made his way over to where the two of them were both standing. "Oh yeah, hi," he rambled, extending his hand out for Rogers to shake. "They told me you'd be coming."

"Word is you can find the cube."

 **"** Is that the only word on me?"

"Only word I care about."

Katniss and Steve both watched as Banner looked around the deck of the Helicarrier. "Must be strange for you, all of this," he noted.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar."

Hating to interrupt the swimmingly-well dialogue running between the two of them as her comm started beeping – the signal for takeoff – Katniss awkwardly stepped in their way. "Uh… you might want to step inside for a minute. It's going to get sort of hard to breathe." Right as the words left her mouth, the turbines below them began to start up, filtering all of the water all of them. Katniss watched as the two men inched closer to the side to get a better look.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked over his shoulder.

"Really? They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" The two men stepped closer to the edge to where they could see over and assess what was currently going on. Katniss however, stayed put and just watched as the two of them stared in awe, not wanting to get any closer herself. The Helicarrier slowly but surely lifted up out of the water, to which Banner let out a bitter laugh at.

"Oh no, this is much worse!" he exclaimed.

"Come with me," Katniss found herself saying, to which both men seemed to hear perfectly fine over the roaring wind from the turbines and seemed to comply to just as easily. She didn't walk too incredibly fast ahead of them, trying to keep a safe distance so she wasn’t stepping on their toes and could still listen in on their conversation.

"What do you suppose happened to the other two?"

"Other two?" Banner asked.

"Yeah," Steve said. "There were supposed to be two more after us and Tony Stark. SHIELD agents."

"Well she's one of them, so we're only down one, right?" Banner queried softly, Katniss feeling their gazes burning into her back. So Fury had included the possible teammates on this little adventure in the file he'd given Steve.  _Well Fury, your whole ‘no confusion’ hope sank rather quickly._

"She just told me that she just got here yesterday."

"Maybe she was away doing something for them."

Looking over her shoulder quickly as they reached the entrance door, Katniss saw Steve shake his head before leaning in a little towards Banner. "I doubt it."

One thing was for sure: whether sincere or sarcastic, Bruce Banner had one hell of a sense of optimism.

 


	4. cards up the sleeve

Katniss couldn't help to keep her head slightly more inclined towards the path her feet were walking inside the Helicarrier's main premises. Steve and Bruce had stopped their whispering about her for now, but she still was listening intently, trying to pick up whatever she could. Fury was standing in his usual spot as they made their way onto the bridge, overseeing all of the operations by the agents in the room, demanding that they disappear from the air. Apparently, there were such a thing as reflection panels, which made them invisible.

Katniss wondered if it was possible for one’s head _not_ to spin when in this place.

She walked up behind one of the agents closest to Fury’s command, who happened to currently be sifting through files between two of Loki's brainwashed minions. Katniss glanced at the picture of the man on the computer screen. "Clint Barton?" she read out quietly. The guy nodded, never taking his eyes off of his research. She didn't study the picture for much longer at the sound of Fury's voice greeting the two new additions on board, much more interested in that encounter than a few SHIELD files. Katniss looked away only in time to see Steve slipping Fury a ten as he looked around the room in awe. She couldn't help but to fight the smirk on her lips and secretly wish she'd spoken up to be a part of that bet when she’d had the chance.  

Folding her arms, Katniss moved around on the balls of her feet to make herself comfortable enough to listen in on the conversation. Fury crossed over, extending his hand for Banner to shake. "Doctor, thank you for coming," Fury said.

"Thanks for asking nicely," Banner muttered, his body language still coming off as awkward to Katniss, even from where she was across the room. His hand rubbed the back of his neck as he took it away from Fury's handshake. "So, uh…how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

"Where are you with that?" Banner asked, looking around. Fury simply pointed at Coulson to explain.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us," Coulson elucidated, his head shifting in the direction of one of the many computers that was currently searching for Loki and the rogue agents. Katniss locked eyes with Bruce, shrugging.

"I mean, whatever it is you’re doing, it's not going to find those guys in time for whatever bad thing you’re waiting for to happen," she muttered under her breath. Coulson heard her, shooting her a thin lipped smile.

"You have to narrow the field," Bruce interjected. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

Fury seemed somewhat stunned by that answer, one he clearly wasn’t expecting. "How many are there?"

The way that Banner seemed to talk about his little spectrometers all but eradicated the awkward air around him. "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places," he said, his eyes scanning the small group of people. "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Everdeen, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?" Fury requested. She didn't respond, but instead rose from her spot next to the agent who'd been currently searching through Clint Barton's file and crossed the floor to where Banner was standing. She didn't wait on him, but instead allowed him to tail behind her like the lost puppy he'd been proving himself to still somewhat be.

"You're going to love it, Doc. They’ve got all the toys," she drawled sarcastically, hearing Banner's footsteps follow in time with hers.

Katniss' expectation was for Banner to trail after her wordlessly, but to her surprise, he'd slightly jogged up to her pace so he was side-by-side with her. "I uh, I hope we haven't gotten off on the wrong foot or anything," he said.

Katniss looked over at him, confusion colored onto her face. "Wrong foot?" she responded.

"Yeah, I kind of noticed you hanging back earlier when that super soldier guy and I were uh—"

"Talking about me?" Katniss cut him off sharply, her voice coming off a lot harsher than she'd intended. "I didn’t think you’d noticed that, much less bring it up." She looked down at her hand, studying her fingers in hopes to avoid eye contact with him.

"No, no, it's fine, I probably wouldn't have handled it too well if I was rubbed the wrong way. Well, me, I'd be fine, but the other guy so to speak…" His voice fell off a cliff, and she could tell that speaking about his other personality was always a touchy subject. She supposed that it would have been the same if the roles were reversed, so in a desperate attempt to drop the conversation, she stopped short in her tracks.

Pasting what had to be the worst attempt of a smile onto her face, Katniss swiveled in Banner's direction and held out her hand. "Katniss," she said.

Banner took her hand hesitantly, but shook it nonetheless. "Nice to meet you, agent."

"Do me a favor and don't call me agent. It just contributes to the whole identity crisis I'm going through," she explained. He nodded as the two of them began walking towards the lab.

"Identity crisis?" Banner asked, one of his eyebrows lifting out of the genuine curiosity that he always seemed to possess.

Katniss shrugged. "Long story that I doubt we have the time for," she said, dismissing his wishes to pry further into her statement with the wave of her hand. Rounding one last corner, Katniss stopped by the entrance to the lab and held out one of her hands. "Well Doc, this is the lab. It’s all yours, no one around to bother you. Not much is on this floor, according to the map taped over my bed.” Banner slowly trudged over the threshold of the lab, looking around. If the file on him that she'd been forced to read was anything true to real form, this was bound to be a kid-in-a-candy-store type of situation.

It seemed that he had all but forgotten Katniss was even standing there, running his hands over the tops of the lab tables and looking around at all of the equipment. Right as she turned on her heel to walk off and leave him be, she heard his voice calling her back. "Miss Everdeen?"

Spinning back around and the braid sitting on her shoulder almost hitting her in the cheek, she looked back at the man with her eyebrows raised. "Yeah?"

"Thank you," he expressed, a half smile spread across his face.

"No problem," she breathed. Before she could put her foot forward and begin to walk back to the main deck, she found more words tumbling out of her mouth. "And it's Katniss."

A bit of color came to Banner's cheeks as he gave a small nod. "You got it. And you can call me Bruce, if it…y'know, makes up for anything."

Katniss didn't say anything, just shot him a toothless smile and was on her way.

* * *

**_LOCATION: REMOTE LABORATORY_ **

_Standing at the reactor where the Tesseract was being held, Dr. Selvig took another close look before walking over to the glass window where Clint Barton was standing. Looking past the other man at all of the other men running about, he piped up. "Where did you find all of these people?" he asked._

_Clint shrugged. "SHIELD has no shortage of enemies, Doc," he explained. He then took the tablet in his hand with the information screen on a substance called iridium and turned it around so Selvig could see it. "Is this the stuff you need?"_

_Selvig nodded, taking another quick glance back at the Tesseract. "Yeah, iridium. It's found in meteorites, forms anti-protons. It's very hard to get a hold of."_

_"Epecially if SHIELD knows you need it."_

_"Well, I didn't know!" Selvig protested. Right as the words left his mouth, Loki appeared. Both men straightened up their shoulders and did their best at appearing more composed than previously in the presence of their master. Selvig took the chance to speak first. "The Tesseract is showing me so much," he gushed. "It's…it's more than knowledge, it's truth."_

_Loki gave a small nod. "I know. What did it show you, Agent Barton?"_

_"My next target."_

_"Tell me what you need."_

_Grabbing his bow off of the hook it had been resting on, Clint continued talking. "I need a distraction," he started, snapping his bow up and making eye contact with Loki before tilting his head to the side. "And an eyeball."_

* * *

SHIELD had done its damn hardest to teach Katniss things that most agents took years to master over the course of five hours. There had been target practice with a gun, which had been rather intimidating seeing as how a lot of agents hit between the eyes or the heart every shot. Katniss had been somewhat alright at it; she was used to her bow and the gun in her hand was a foreign feeling, but target practice was target practice no matter the tool and she had impeccable aim. She'd also had some interesting copiloting crash course courtesy of Phil Coulson, who fitted her headset and showed her the different switches. He'd told her, "Push comes to shove, you'll be helping one of our pilots get one of these things out and about, but Fury seriously doubts we'll put you in the field that soon." Somehow, Katniss doubted that doubt of Fury's very seriously, seeing as how everything that they had said would most likely not happen did.

The most fun part of her crash course in being a SHIELD agent had been the bow fittings. Coulson, who had been told by Fury that Katniss was exceptionally skilled at the bow (the system that the organization seemed to run on went a lot like a grade school game of telephone) gave her a practice bow to let her have her hand at it. Apparently, it was just to see how she did with a tactical bow. It didn't take long for her to realize that they were a hell of a lot tighter than the ones she and Gale used to hunt, and her first few shots had been wildly off, if they even made it to the target. A few of the agents on lunch break who had gathered to watch were snickering, and not one to overlook the teasing she'd been approached with all the time at home here, she drew an arrow and sent it flying at their heads. It landed right in between two of the men's heads, their eyes wide and terrified. Coulson just shrugged before taking her to get a custom bow made, a rather pleased smile on his face.

She also hadn't been blind to the whispers that followed her down the halls of the Helicarrier. Word spread fast when you were several thousand feet in the air and all confined to one giant ship, and the word on her was that she'd been granted honorary clearance levels since she was hunting the Tesseract. Apparently, no one ever got that lucky. Ever. Katniss' assumption was that it had a great deal to do with who her parents were, but she was making zero headway with getting names out of Fury. He was always redirecting her to something else every time that she'd seen him, and it was getting irritating.

Standing in front of the small mirror in her bunk, her fingers swiftly moved down her hair as she redid the trademark braid she kept her hair in. All her life, she was used to putting her hair in its sufficient braid due to the fact it kept the hair out of her face whenever she and Gale went hunting. Her hair was pretty thick and had a bad tendency of falling out of ponytails, the braid being the most practical option. Right as she was finishing tying off the bottom bit with a hair tie, the comm link in her ear made a noise before Fury's voice rang out. "Everdeen?"

"Yes sir?" Katniss asked, dropping the braid on her shoulder and moving her hands behind to smooth down the flyaway hairs.

"We need you on the holding deck ASAP, Quinjet #30185 is waiting for you in order to takeoff."

Katniss exited her bunk, boots clicking on the floor as she made her way through the halls of the Helicarrier. "Location?"

"Stuttgart, Germany. Satellite facial recognition got a hit with Loki and wherever that guy goes, trouble usually follows. You and Captain America will be taking care of this one; your mission is to get Loki in our possession and return back to base as quickly as possible with minimal fatalities," Fury directed. Katniss stopped walking for a minute, pressing the comm link further in her ear.

"And if we can't do that?"

"Try." Fury's one word command sounded like a lot more of a threat than a request to Katniss.

"Alright then," Katniss complied with a soft sigh, resuming her walk towards the loading deck.

"Intel says you and Coulson got you fitted for a bow earlier; we've put it on the Quinjet in case. Once you get to Stuttgart, I need for you to get on the ground and run a quick patrol to scope out the situation for us. Quinjet will pick you up as soon as possible after Captain Rogers is on the ground, we'll need you back in the air. Questions, Miss Everdeen?"

"Yeah, just one—do I need to take any shots of courage before this?"

"If you're not comfortable dropping out of a plane then yes, I'd suggest doing so." The comm cut off, Fury signing off the line and leaving Katniss alone with her thoughts. They weren't too pleasant, that was for sure.

As she made her way through the loading deck, she could easily pick out which bird she'd be boarding. It was the one that was of course, being swarmed by crew to prep it for takeoff. Walking onto the cargo hold ramp, she saw her spare headset hanging and put it on, adjusting it to her head. It would of course figure that she'd have to do this only hours after learning it.

"Fancy seeing you here," a voice came from behind her, causing Katniss to jump slightly and whirl around. Standing before her was Steve Rogers, although he didn't look too much like Steve Rogers and more like a comic book character. His Captain America uniform and shield did everything but deflect attention from him, and she prayed this wouldn't be an undercover kind of mission. Otherwise, they were screwed.

Looking him up and down, Katniss smirked. "Quite the flashy tactical gear you got there, Cap," she teased.

"Coulson said they redid the uniform and he had some design input," Rogers explained, his face twisting up slightly at her mocking.

Katniss nodded slowly. "That explains the, uh…theatrics. Not sure how much Germany is gonna like seeing a walking talking American flag."

"If this Loki means any funny business, they'll be damn happy to see it," he growled in a more serious tone of voice, turning to hang up his shield on the wall of the Quinjet.

"Damn, alright then" Katniss muttered under her breath. Rogers turned to shoot her a look, and she backed up slightly. "It's called making light of the situation, did they not have that in 1920?"

"You think this is a light situation?"

"Not really; it’s why sarcasm is my back-up defense mechanism for when I don’t have a bow."

"Wheels up in two," the pilot said, cutting between Katniss and Rogers and the tension that was building between the both of them. Katniss didn't say anything else to him, instead making her way up to the front of the Quinjet and getting herself situated in the copilot's seat. All of the switches and controls still seemed beyond foreign to her, but she figured she'd just get used to them as she went or have the pilot yell at her the right answer when she messed up. There was no other option presenting itself to her, after all.

"Coleman, Everdeen, you're cleared for takeoff," Hill's voice came in through Katniss' headset, and the pilot began flicking controls and inching them towards the ramp. Katniss flicked on one of the generic shifts that Coulson had taught her before turning around to face Rogers.

"Might wanna sit down, Cap, this is my first time piloting one of these things," she said, trying to fight the grin from her face. She knew that it would surely get up under his skin if anything and that was all she really cared about. The look on his face told her that she'd successfully gotten what she wanted.

* * *

About twenty minutes or so into the flight, Katniss stood up from her seat and walked back to where Captain Rogers was currently sitting, idly fiddling with his shield. They were right outside of Stuttgart, Alexander trying to find a good place to get Katniss on the scene to do a quick patrol of the gala where Loki was currently prowling around. She took off her headset, resting it on a hook near Steve’s head.

Rogers had a particularly puzzled look on his face as he watched her. "What are you taking that off for?"

"Did no one tell you?" she asked, sitting down on the edge of the seat closest to him. "They're making the new girl check the place out before they send in the hero."

"I'm uh, sorry?"

"No need to apologize," Katniss chuckled, looking at the confusion Rogers had written all over his face.

"So Fury ordered you to go out and patrol somewhere where a psychotic alien is currently roaming around, probably with backup, on your first day?"

"Second day," she quickly clarified, letting her hands fall into her lap. "The way you say it just makes it that much more intimidating."

"Sorry about that," Rogers apologized. "And sorry for my little outburst earlier, I shouldn't have snapped at you."

Katniss shook her head. "It’s fine,” she replied. “All high tension and shit. Besides, I don’t have much room to tease anyone on outfits, this one’s a nightmare.” She gestured down at the tactical suit Coulson had provided her with once they’d wrapped up on her bow fittings.

"They’re made of the same material," Rogers informed her. A wave of silence crashed over them, the awkwardness lingering a lot longer in the air than either of them wished. It grew too uncomfortable for him, because he was the one who piped up first. "So, you don't really know much about the Tesseract?"

Clicking her tongue, Katniss moved her hands around in her lap and shook her head once more. "I know it's a glowing blue cube and is in the hands of the bad guy. And that I'm somehow needed to find it, which is all I _need_ to know about it, really."

"I don't know if you know, but I sort of…nosedived in the Arctic with it seventy years ago," Rogers offered, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"I know. I had to read your file."

"Find anything interesting in there?"

Katniss opened her mouth to say something, but her comm link buzzed and Fury's voice filled her ear. "Everdeen, you're in the clear to patrol. Alexander's putting you on one of the buildings below to oversee things." Taking that as her cue, she rose up from her seat, crossing over to the other side of the Quinjet and grabbing her bow from one of the racks. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rogers following suit behind her, even more confused than before. It seemed to be the typical look on his face.

"What are you doing?" he queried. Katniss turned around, slinging the quiver of arrows that went along with her bow over her shoulder.

"Going to clear the ground for you, what else?" she retorted. The cargo hold ramp slowly began to lower as Alexander began to circle back around the top of the building where she assumed she'd be doing her clearance of the ground below. Taking a deep breath, she slowly made her way down the ramp, the wind blowing in her face.

"Are you crazy, you can't jump and make that!" Rogers shouted from behind her, his voice all but drowned out by the howling of the wind. Katniss however, just stared down at the lights from below and started counting her breaths, just like she always did before firing an arrow at that night's dinner.

Looking back over her shoulder, she smirked. "Better speak well of me if I die, then." With that, she took off running down the cargo hold ramp until her feet were no longer connected to something, in free fall. There had only been one other time in her life she'd been in any situation similar to this, and that was when she'd fallen out of a tree that was a good three stories up. It had been a terrifying sort of rush and once Gale caught her, she'd sworn off anything that could result in her falling again. The adrenaline rush wasn't one that she enjoyed, for sure.

She'd been told initially that there was no parachute; not only was the short distance a factor, she had to go unseen and the whole parachute idea wouldn't help that cause any. The building was growing closer and closer with every nanosecond that passed and she knew if she didn't do something, she'd land spread eagle on the top of the building and most likely kill herself. Still trying to count her breaths and focus in on the rapidly approaching rooftop, Katniss willed herself into a diving sort of position towards the building as she kept plummeting downwards. Once the building was within her reach, she landed it in a roll, her knees skidding along the rooftop. Cursing underneath her breath, she dusted her knees off and grabbed an arrow from her quiver, drawing it back and ready to defend herself. "Everdeen, I've landed," she whispered, trying not to speak too loudly in the case she wasn't alone.

"Go to the edge of the building, see what you see," Alexander directed in her ear. "If you see any of Loki's men, let me know. If not, I'll come down and pick you up as soon as Captain gets off."

"Roger that," she said softly, pressing the comm unit in her ear to secure it back from her jump. She made her way towards the edge of the building, peering over the edge. The sight she saw wasn't too pretty; apparently, the snipers that had been positioned on the adjacent building for the gala's sake had already been shot down, arrows sticking out of their chests. Kneeling down, she never put down the bow or the arrow. "Snipers for the gala are down, arrows straight through the chest. Loki's guys clearly beat us."

"Do you see any of them?" Alexander questioned in her ear.

"I—" She started to speak, but she found the voice taken from her voice as the shadow of someone else approached the building. Terrified that they had noticed her, she ducked down, her breathing heavy. It had to be one of Loki's men, seeing as how all of the men they'd assigned for the gala were already lying dead on the ground. The look she had gotten of whoever it was had been a poor one, so she carefully glanced over the edge of the building, only allowing herself a tiny peek to avoid being seen. What she saw was enough to nearly knock the breath out of her.

"Everdeen?" Alexander's voice kept ringing in her ear as he repeated her name over and over again, but Katniss couldn't find anything to say. "Everdeen, answer me; that's an order."

"Is Captain Rogers on the ground?" her own voice sounded unfamiliar as she spoke softly, hoping she wouldn't have to say much more.

"Why?"

"Get me off this building," she deadpanned, lowering her bow and putting her arrow back in the quiver.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, get me off of this goddamn building." Her voice was strangled, and Alexander didn't question anything. Instead, she silently waited against the side of the building for the Quinjet to circle back around, lowering a small ladder for her since it couldn't land to retrieve her. Hooking her bow onto the edge of her quiver as she approached it, she reached up and grabbed one of the rungs on the measly little latter, hoisting herself up. It took everything in her to climb up that floating ladder, especially after what she'd just seen.

It didn't make sense, but there was no denying that standing down at the foot of that building, sneaking into the department where most of Loki's men had disappeared into most likely, was Gale, his glassy eyes glowing an eerie shade of blue already staring back at her her every time she blinked.


	5. stuttgart

Alexander had stared at her as though she was an alien herself when she stormed back onto the Quinjet, but Katniss didn't really care. She'd slammed her headset back on her head rather forcefully, with Alexander asking her questions in one ear and Fury in the other, and try as she might, it was proving near impossible to tune them out. She needed a second to collect her thoughts and more importantly, process what she'd seen. What she'd _seen_ was Gale, her best friend, a person who she'd as good as written out of her life and never assumed she'd see again, walking around with the bad guys. And his eyes were the most haunting thing—glazed over and empty, almost like he was a puppet being strung along. No matter what she tried to occupy herself with, be it Fury barking orders into her ear or trying flip the right switches there in the cockpit, she couldn't shake the image from her mental library. It was, unfortunately, plastered down.

"Everdeen, Alexander," Fury's never-ending voice plowed on, prying Katniss from her thoughts of Gale's glowing eyes. "I need you to quit circling buildings like a bunch of sitting ducks and get down to that gala, Loki’s turned up with a bang.” Katniss immediately reached up to flick on the speakers, turning them on inside to listen to the madness that was going on as Alexander took off in the direction of where the gala was being held. Even over the sound of the engines, Katniss could hear people screaming, sirens wailing; all of it the perfect ingredients to downright chaos. One of the sirens cut off mid-screech with a loud bang following.  _Right, monsters and magic._

As they made their way behind one of the buildings closest to the gala in order to keep from being seen, Katniss tried zooming in on the panel reflecting an external camera’s live feed. Loki was corralling a group of people into a square-most likely those who had ran from the gala, in some get-up that had to be alien since no one in their right mind would wear it in public, hand grasped around a scepter. "Okay, Rogers, where are you," Katniss mumbled, her eyes darting over the feed for the spangled uniform and the shield.

Loki's voice then rang out in the aircraft, making Katniss jump slightly in her seat. "I said,  _kneel_!" There was an overwhelming silence on the ground; if she didn't know any better, she would have assumed that he'd killed them all since there was hardly a sound of someone breathing. "Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

Again with the silence, but it was shortly cut off with the sound of a man's quiet voice, his German accent heavy. "Not to a man like you," he said, and Katniss felt the knot she hadn't even known was residing in her throat tighten. In her head, she was screaming for Rogers to hurry up and make his grand entrance already. To be damned with all these theatrics.

"There are no men like me," Loki's oddly calm voice echoed out, the hairs standing up on Katniss' arms.

"There are always men like you."

Loki paused, before his voice filled their ears once more. "Look to your elder people."

"Forget Cap, get the Quinjet to level, Alexander—"

"That's not your call, Everdeen—"

"Let him be an example," said Loki, his final warning before what Katniss was sure was going to end in death.

" _Do_ it, dammit!" Katniss all but shrieked, flipping the speakers off. She didn't need to hear anymore, and they only had a few moments left. Alexander didn't make any sort of fuss after that, and Fury wasn't in her ear fighting it. The Quinjet rose above the building at a lurching speed, pinning Katniss against her seat as they dropped back down, only to see that Rogers had landed on the ground, saving the old man from his imminent death. "You’re fucking kidding," she mumbled irritably.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing," Steve said, walking through the crowd of people, some of whom were rising from their kneeling positions.

Loki, who had been knocked on his back from the blast, looked up at him with a sneer on his face. "The soldier. A man out of time."

"I'm not the one who's out of time." As the Quinjet lowered into view, Katniss flicked the switches on the broadcast to the speakers outside on the Quinjet and the machine gun harboring itself in the belly of their aircraft.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down," Alexander said, as he began to count down until firing in the pit beside her. She was surprised at how calm he was; Loki was enough to rattle anyone’s cage. Loki's eyes attached to the Quinjet, raising his scepter as a blue light shot out of it, heading straight for their aircraft. Grabbing the controls in front of her, Katniss jerked them over out of the blast's way as best as she could. Fury, of course, was now taking the worst opportunity to start barking out orders, and it took everything in her not to rip the headset off and play at her own angle. But, knowing Fury, he probably could see all the way to Stuttgart from the Helicarrier.

Below on the ground, Steve and Loki were locked in a fight, Loki swinging around his scepter and Steve blocking him with the shield as people all around them ran for their lives. It was a dance between the two of them, and there was no telling who was going to come out on top. After another blast, Steve ended up on his knees with Loki pressing the scepter down hard on the back of his neck. Through gritted teeth he growled, "Kneel."

Steve, who had other plans in mind, grumbled back, "Not today," before flipping and knocking Loki over.

The fight continuing on, Katniss kept flipping switches and trying to adjust the gun in case the need to fire arose again (or if Fury ordered her to, more like it). "This guy's all over the place," she muttered to Alexander, who was trying to get the aircraft back at a proper altitude to get a good target lock on Loki.

Down below on one of the screens, a warning symbol flashed 'PA OVERRIDE', and an unfamiliar voice flooded her ears in the headset. "My my, if it isn't the baby bird, finally flying," it chuckled. Katniss looked over at Alexander, who was rolling his eyes. No sooner had she blinked did a rock song begin blaring in the aircraft, as well as over the PA system out into the streets of Stuttgart.

"Shoot to Thrill, that son of a bitch," Alexander mumbled under his breath, his hands coiling and recoiling around the controls before lowering them slightly to bring them closer to the ground. From out the window, a metal suit—what had to be the Iron Man, as it was called in the file she'd been forced to read, emitted a blast that sent Loki flying backwards. Iron Man landed on the ground, hands out in Loki's direction.

"Make a move, Reindeer Games," he said, Rogers standing up and walking over towards him. The gun in the Quinjet still aiming at Loki as they furthered their way down, Katniss watched as the golden horns and the rest of his royal getup slowly vanished into thin air as Loki raised his hands slowly. All of the little weapons built into the suit's arms quickly folded away, Stark lowering his arms. "Good move."

"Mr. Stark," Rogers said, his eyes never leaving Loki.

"Captain."

* * *

Tony Stark was an enigma if there ever was one, Katniss decided on their way back to the Helicarrier. They'd dropped down to let Rogers and Stark on board, both of whom were holding Loki in an incredibly tight grip. The both of them had tried to do the honors of strapping Loki to his seat, but Alexander had had to kindly intervene and do it himself. Katniss watched on quietly, with Stark smirking at her the entire time, his eyes far from focused on Loki. Steve noticed it too, visibly perturbed by Tony’s mere presence, leaving Katniss in a rather uncomfortable position. She was thankful when Alexander returned to the cockpit, for a brief moment swearing she could hear Tony humming an old nursery rhyme song, but she couldn't pinpoint which one. Her ears were still ringing from the impromptu rock concert.

Steve hadn't sat down once during the entire ride, despite the fact that they were flying through quite a bit of turbulence that had come up. Instead, he stayed put in front of the small way that lead into the cockpit of their aircraft; whether it was to keep an eye on Katniss or distance himself from Loki, she didn't really know and she didn't really care to hear an answer from him either. Tony had been pacing, occasionally snarling or throwing funny little looks at their prisoner. It was only fitting.

"Has he said anything?" Fury asked in her ear, Katniss leaning up to look at Loki from her seat.

"Not a word."

"Just get him here, we're running low on time," he growled before the comm went out just as quickly as it had turned on.

"I don't like it," Steve said.

"What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?" Tony responded, head turning to face Steve. Another thing that Katniss had picked up on Tony in the very, very short time she'd been in his presence was that his wit went just about unmatched. He was a spitfire, Stark, and she got the feeling that his mouth got him in more trouble than it did out.

 **"** I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop," Steve explained, shrugging.

Stark nodded slowly, his mouth still running five miles a minute. "Still, you were pretty spry, for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates?"

To no one's surprise, Steve had no idea what he was talking about. "What?"

"It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle."

The tone in Steve's voice shifted very quickly, and even Katniss could tell that it wasn't for the better either. "Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in," Steve prompted icily.

Tony didn't seem to take much offense to it, allowing it to roll right off of his shoulders. "Yeah, there are a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you." Katniss wanted nothing more than to jump in and agree with that, but didn't. Namely because she wasn't up for telling the grand tale of how she'd even been recruited in the first place, but also because no sooner had the words left his mouth, an abnormal strike of lightning and roar of thunder shook the jet.

Alexander and Katniss immediately lurched into action, Alexander spouting off SHIELD protocols into his headset as Katniss began pushing all of the buttons Coulson had told her were used for in cases of extreme weather. "What the hell?" she said, her voice rising in volume slightly. "Weather said we were clear skies except for the fog and occasional bump, where's this coming from?"

Steve looked back at Loki, whose face had apparently twisted up. "What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?"

Taking her eyes off the skies to look back at Loki, Katniss could see the worry colored on their captive's face as he stared up at the roof of their aircraft. "I'm not overly fond of what follows," he explained.

Just as the words came, the jet shook violently as something landed on the roof. Everyone was jostled, Katniss almost falling out in the floor. "Shit," she accidentally stammered out as she straightened herself back up. She reached up and pulled down the cargo hold ramp on Stark’s request, him preparing to walk out and see what the matter was. He'd taken all of two steps before what literally was a force of nature landed on the ramp, shaking the jet once more. The Iron Man suit's thrusters were gearing up, but there was no time for them to fire as the man who had just arrived knocked him all the way into the back of Alexander's seat. He grabbed Loki by the collar of his robes, ripping him out of his seat as he took what appeared to be an oversized hammer and flew right off the cargo ramp.  _Right, there are_ two _Asgardians,_ Katniss reminded herself.

"Another Asgardian," she shouted over the roaring wind.

"Think the guy's a friendly?" Steve responded, his voice barely distinct what with the commotion from her headset and the cargo ramp being down.

"Doesn't matter," Tony interjected. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost." Katniss had all but forgot that this was still about the Tesseract—Loki and all his dramatics certainly distracted one from the true point of the matter. Tony began to walk down the cargo ramp, Steve desperately trying to get him to stay and listen.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" There it was, the whole strategic and tactical side of the super soldier shining through.

Tony paused at the edge of the ramp, his head turning around slightly so Steve could hear him over the roaring wind. "I have a plan. Attack."

Stark jumped out of the jet, much to Steve's dismay—Katniss knew only because his loud sigh was just that, _loud_. Alexander was all but shouting protocols into his headset, and god only knew that Fury was going bananas on the other end of the comm link that had yet to buzz in her ear. Her eyes catching sight of movement as she reached up to flick another switch at Alexander's request, she could see that Steve was reaching for one of the emergency parachutes and strapping it on himself. "Steve, sit this one out," she warned him.

"Don't see how I can," he responded, obviously mimicking her name in the same way she'd said his. Rolling her eyes, she swiveled around farther in her seat.

"Look, I know that me giving you advice probably doesn't reassure you any since it's my second day—"

"Oh, really?"

Katniss' mouth flattened into a line, her eyes shooting daggers at the Captain. "These guys come from legend, Steve, they're basically gods."

"There's only one God, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Before she had time to jump up from her seat and prevent him from following Tony into swan-diving off the cargo hold ramp that was still open—why, she still didn't know, Steve had already disappeared. Sinking back into her seat somewhat defeated, she shook her head.

"Fucking hell."

* * *

To say that Fury was beyond pissed with them when they returned to the Helicarrier was an understatement. Katniss had briefly caught sight of the sheer rage in his eyes when he saw Tony strutting past him like the peacock that he was, but it quickly faded after he blinked. Katniss was beginning to think that being the only woman and further, sane person on this mission aside from Agent Hill was a rather good thing, because she couldn't be blamed for everything that the men (and demigod) did. Thor (Katniss had asked for his name when the three Stooges brought Loki back on board  _again_ and he'd responded with "I am Thor of Asgard, my fair maiden"), Steve and Tony had all but decimated a forest thanks to the power of the thunder and Iron Man suit colliding. Fury hadn't been too pleased to hear about it either once they all got back on board.

Coulson, Fury and Hill had all been awaiting their return on the loading deck, along with several agents who were heavily armed. Chances were, they were off to escort Loki to his prison cell. Thor had followed behind Coulson, seemingly eager to discuss something, if not just because Coulson was a familiar face in the crowd of many unfamiliar. Steve had shot Katniss a look—he wasn't too happy with her for snapping at him after he'd gotten back on board. Really, she hadn't meant to snap; with it being the second day on the job, all three of her passengers jumping out of the plane one after the other, each obviously knowing better than to do so, but it had just fallen out of her mouth. The jabs at his masculinity by taking Loki from him and Stark once more to handle probably didn't do much good either, she realized as she watched him walk back inside with Hill. Loki and his new buddies were off on their way to his suite, and it left Fury, Tony and Katniss alone. She hadn't been very thrilled about her options; internally, she had been hoping Bruce would show on the loading deck to welcome her back, but of course, he was a no show. Saying hello to the person who was trying to bring about the world's demise probably didn't help alleviate any stress.

Walking down the corridors beside Tony, she fiddled with her gun for a second as she tried to put it back on safety. He chuckled a little, Katniss' rather short fuse with him sparking quickly. "Agent can't put her gun back on safety?" he quipped.

"Maybe not, but I can gladly send an arrow through your eye socket if you keep irritating me," she fired back, never taking her eyes off the gun. Tony let out a low whistle.

"Someone's rather feisty."

"And irritated," Katniss added.

"Wow, archery. Who taught you, pops?"

Katniss shoved the gun rather forcefully back in its holster on her belt, head snapping up to meet Stark's mirthful eyes. The smirk was of course, still dancing on his lips. "Yeah, so? What the hell does it matter to you?"

Tony's eyes widened a bit, as if he was shocked Katniss had snapped at him like that. "Whoa- _oh_ , someone definitely takes after—"

"That's enough Stark," Fury interrupted from in front of them.

"Oh come on, Nick, don't you think—"

"I  _think_  that's enough." If the sound of Fury's voice could kill, Tony would have been sliced open, stabbed a couple hundred times and shot right through the head then and there. Tony fell silent, obviously not too happy that he had been silenced in such a way.

"I'm going to go talk to Coulson, if you don't mind," he said stiffly, not waiting for any sort of approval or response from Fury before turning down a random corridor.

"You know," Katniss finally said after a moment of silence and catching up to Fury's pace. "If all of us are expected to be a team, I don't think it's going to work as easily as you thought. We kind of all act the same, you know."

"Yeah, I know. You're all stubborn, hard-headed, and grade-A assholes."

"Correction; Tony's stubborn, hard-headed, and a grade-A  _narcissistic_  asshole," she returned.

"And also a dead man if he opens his mouth one more time," Fury muttered. Katniss wanted to ask why that was, but she knew it better than to push any little ounce of luck she already had. All she knew was that Stark's excessive knowledge really was excessive, and on everything, because he was the one person who hadn't needed for her to introduce herself to know who she was.


	6. team building

Awkwardly enough, right about the time that they rounded the next corner, they were greeted by none other than Steve and Agent Hill. Apparently every corridor on the Helicarrier was intertwined with each other and opened out at the same destinations; she would have thought she would have at least bumped into Tony once again considering his unusual fascination with her, or if she was lucky, Coulson. At first, Katniss thought she'd be able to narrowly escape the encounter by slipping on by with Fury, but he stopped her right in her tracks. "Miss Everdeen," he said rather loudly, as if he was addressing a child. "Go with Captain Rogers and Hill; I'd prefer to address our newest guest by myself." Fury then turned his attention to Hill. "Make sure they're all on the bridge, I'll be there in ten."

"Yes sir," Hill responded, watching as Fury stalked down the hallway in a cloud of black. "Away you two go." She didn't even throw a look in Katniss' direction to make sure she was following, instead she just resumed her usual fast pace. Steve was more than likely pretending she wasn't there since he'd not so much as looked her way, and Hill wasn't making too much of an effort to make any kind of interaction with Katniss herself. Usually, catching a spare moment of silence on this Helicarrier seemed to be impossible, but now it was like everyone had gone to sleep.

Keeping her eyes on her feet, she almost didn't realize it was Steve who was talking to her once he opened his mouth. "Any reason you're Miss Everdeen and not Agent?" he asked, his voice shaking her out of her trance she'd absentmindedly fallen into. Her head rose to meet his curious eyes, slightly shocked that he had seemed to thaw out that quickly. _Must have been a whole forties thing, not holding a grudge for a hot minute. Can’t relate._

"Same reason you're Captain Rogers and not Agent Rogers," she replied.

"Consultant, then, like Mr. Stark," Steve followed, and Katniss' face twisted into an uncomfortable expression. Being compared to Tony in any likelihood wasn't exactly something she dreamed about, seeing as how he was nothing more than a snarky, cocky billionaire. The two of them had about as much in common as an apple and a spool of thread.

"If you want to get that technical, I guess. I think Fury looks at me more like I'm his glorified search dog," she explained, her eyes focused more on her feet than the person that she was talking to. Steve didn't really seem to pick up on it that much; when Katniss lifted her gaze slightly, she could see that he was staring straight ahead.

"I mean, if you think about it, we all sort of are. He's got plenty of people at his disposal."

"Sounds like Fury logic: has hundreds of people under his command, rallies up new ones to do his dirty work," Katniss mused icily as they turned out onto the bridge, where the energy levels were alive. Agents were running left and right, everyone's voices all blending together; even though she hadn't been aboard for very long, she was already used to the general hectic environment of the bridge.

"You two can take a seat," Hill instructed, her hand gesturing out to the meeting table. "Fury and the others will be here in a moment." Katniss took the chair closest to where she was standing, a good view of the entire room, her hunting preferences working their way into even the most mundane of things. Steve however, decided to walk all the way around and sit on the opposite end of the table. It took everything in Katniss not to roll her eyes and scoff. No sooner had Steve sat down did Thor wander in aimlessly, looking beyond confused. Coulson must have disappeared and left him to his own devices, which, judging by the look on Thor's face, probably wasn't the best idea that he'd ever had.

"Uh, Thor? Over here," Katniss called, grabbing the attention of the hopelessly lost demigod. His head rose at the sound of her voice, a small smile resting on his face as he strode over to her.

One thing that Katniss had quickly picked up on Thor was that he was very wordy, meaning that he talked as if he had recently stepped out of a Shakespeare festival. "Lady Everdeen, thank you for your assistance, I most deeply appreciate it," he said, taking a hand that had currently been resting on the table and holding it in between both of his. Katniss was shot for words.

"Um, no problem," she muttered as Thor gave her another friendly smile that quickly faded as he walked over to where Hill was standing, observing all of them like they were a group of kindergarteners who needed the supervision. She supposed that Fury had requested it after their little show in the forest. It wasn't her damn fault that the very people who knew better had decided to all start fighting with each other. And really, Fury should have known better; sometimes uniting people over a common enemy didn’t always unite them in the ways desired. Katniss drummed her fingers on the table absentmindedly, her lips pursed as she tuned all of the hustling around her completely out. Her eyes trained on the surface of the table, she jumped slightly when she saw a live feed from one of the security cameras appear. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Steve straighten up slightly, and Thor's eyes had snapped to her.

"You accidentally pressed the popup feed button," a voice came from behind her. It wasn't Steve, and it most definitely wasn't Thor, and as soon as she turned around, she was very relieved to see that it wasn't Tony either.

"And why does the popup feed button even exist?" she replied, smiling at Bruce. He shrugged, fiddling with the pen in his hand. "Been enjoying yourself in the lab?"

"Well I was, until the guards decided to take Loki on the scenic route to his cell. Bastard smiled at me as soon as he saw me until he was out of sight," Bruce sighed. Steve, who had kept his mouth shut since they arrived and had kept a rather wary eye on both Katniss and Bruce, took that moment to pipe up.

"That's probably Loki trying to mess with you. Heaven knows he does enough of that."

Looking back down to the feed that was currently playing in front of her, she could see Loki standing in the cell—or as Fury had referred to it, a giant steel cage, with Fury standing at the control panel for it. "In case it's unclear," Fury began. "You try to escape; you so much as  _scratch_  that glass." He pressed a button on the panel which removed the bottom of the floor from underneath the cage, the roaring of the wind below them almost drowning them out. Loki looked down slightly, still expressionless. Thor turned away, unable to look at the stream and instead stared straight ahead. His brother was still definitely a sore spot for him, Katniss had come to put together.

"Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury then closed the hole, bringing the floor back under him. He pointed straight at Loki. "Ant," he said, his pointer finger moving to the control panels. "Boot."

Loki chuckled darkly. "It's an impressive cage," he started. Apparently, the god of tricks was also one of compliments. "Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury clarified, the grin on Loki's face growing by the second.

"Oh, I've heard," he drawled out, before looking directly into the security camera. Katniss looked away from the monitor to glimpse at Bruce, who didn't seem too terribly offended by Loki's little jab. Instead, he continued to mess with the pen in his hand, pushing his glasses up a little bit higher on the bridge of his nose. Steve was intently watching the interrogation as well, Thor still in his own world of thought. "The mindless beast, makes play to be the man."

There was a rather dramatic pause as Loki shuffled forward towards the edge of the cage, where Fury was standing. "How  _desperate_  are you?" he sneered. "You call on such lost creatures to defend you. You drag them from their isolated corners of the world, some of whom don't even know why they're under you in the first place and throw them together in hopes they'll save you from destruction, when the only unifying quality they truly have is the common force pushing them together, assuaging them in an attempt to make them what you need. You have no saviors in them, they will only fail you." Katniss knew that he was now taking jabs at all of them, not just Banner anymore.

Fury scowled at him. "How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate," he growled, an eyebrow raising. "You might not be glad that you did."

Loki whistled, his face twisting. "It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power,  _unlimited_  power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is." Katniss crossed her arms on the table, rolling her eyes.

Fury was already walking away by the time Loki had finished with his little monologue. "Yeah, well, you let me know if _real power_ wants a magazine or something." Reaching down, Steve cut the monitors off and left them all sitting there in as much silence that could be mustered up in the middle of their surroundings.

Bruce chuckled, pointing down at the table. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Like a leech," Katniss commented dryly.

"Loki's going to drag this out," Steve interrupted, always being the tactical man. His eyes were locked on the other demigod in the room. "Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri that are not of Asgard, nor any world I know. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."  _Great. Aliens. The last thing I was hoping to have to deal with,_  Katniss thought to herself. Steve, who knew how to read minds apparently, voiced the things that had been bouncing around inside her head.

"An army, from outer space," he repeated dumbly.

"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for," Bruce pointed out. For once in the whole time that Katniss had known the guy, Thor seemed to understand what they were talking about.

"Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

Katniss took that moment to speak, her eyes momentarily taking their focus off the table and looking up at Thor. "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with another SHIELD agent," she said, her mind flashing back to when she'd walked in and saw Clint Barton on the face-trace screen, his file pulled up all over the bridge as they searched for him. She then thought of Gale and his possessed eyes, and shuddered slightly. "And something of mine."

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve said. "He's not leading an army from here."

Shaking his head, Bruce pointed back down to the now shut-off monitors. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him," he explained, which caught Thor's attention almost immediately. Again, the guy loved his brother, no matter what he seemed to do. The whole unconditional, brotherly love shtick, Katniss figured.

"Have care how you speak," Thor growled. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

Katniss stared at her hands. "He’s killed eighty people in two days," she fired off before looking up at Thor's face.

He shrugged. "He's adopted?"

Bruce, who didn't seem to care where Loki came from or who he was related to, shook his head. "Iridium," he pointed out, bringing everyone's attention back to what had happened in Stuttgart. "What did they need the Iridium for?

"It's a stabilizing agent," a new voice was thrown into the mixture, and Katniss had to fight the groan that almost instantly rose up in her throat. Tony strutted into sight, Coulson falling back behind him slightly. Tony turned to say something else to Coulson that wasn't audible to Katniss; all she knew that Coulson walked away from Stark's path with a smirk on his face. He continued talking. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD."

Tony walked over to where Fury usually stood, overlooking operations, patting Thor on the arm as he passed. "No hard feelings Point Break, you've got a mean swing." He paused for a minute, before returning back to the topic at hand, the iridium. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

 _Great,_ Katniss thought to herself.  _Loki wants a potential alien invasion that lasts for a while. I don’t see how this can get any worse._ She didn't hear Tony request a few of the bridge techs to raise the monitors, but she sure as hell heard him yell out, "That man is playing Gallaga! Thought we wouldn't notice," he said, dropping his hands to his side. "But we did." Katniss watched as he lifted one hand up, seeing him swivel around only to see the hand was covering his eye. "How does Fury even see these?" he queried.

"He turns," Hill replied dryly.

"Sounds exhausting," Tony quipped. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube." He clapped his hands together, staring around the table as if for some sort of confirmation or agreement. He didn't get much if that was what he'd been expecting.

Again, Agent Hill spoke up. "Sorry, when did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?

"Last night." The look on Tony's face was one that if, given the chance, Katniss would probably smack clean off his face. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" he asked.

"Speak for yourself," she growled. "I’ve done more reading in the past few hours than I ever have in my life."

"Reading's good for you, baby bird, I wouldn't complain. Fury's only trying to broaden your mind. Or manipulate it," Tony muttered, and if looks could kill, Katniss would have sent him several thousand feet under. Plus, the nickname he continued to reference her with was one that set her teeth on edge, and she couldn't really put her finger on why. Maybe it just had to do with the fact it was coming from him.

Steve quickly stepped in, sensing the obvious tension heightening. "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce explained.

"Unless," Tony prolonged. "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

The group watched the two completely baffled, Katniss having to fight the urge to drop her jaw like any sane person. "Is that what just happened?" Steve muttered, his eyes meeting Katniss'. She shrugged.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony said, shaking the other man's hand. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce looked rather uncomfortable, but nodded. "Thanks."

Fury took that moment to make his grand entrance, striding onto the bridge and over where they were holding their little impromptu meeting. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him," he said.

Tony chuckled slightly. "Banner, my dad's lab experiment, Point Break, and the baby bird over there you mean?"

Katniss saw something flash in Fury's eyes, something that was far beyond murder. "Don’t push it, Stark," Fury said through his gritted teeth. She straightened up slightly in order to get a good look at the past-furious-and-ready-to-explode figure standing at the head of their meeting table, some enlightenment returning to her. Tony and Fury facing off? Now, _that_ thought was able to bring her a little joy.

"Pushing what?" Tony replied innocently.

"You _know_  what _._  You pull one more damn move with the nicknames and references, you'll find yourself on a free skydiving session without the Iron Man suit to assist you." So he was talking about all the stuff he'd said to Katniss. She didn't really know why it was a big deal; sure, it annoyed the living hell out of her, but it wasn't as though he was being offensive. It was just…Tony being Tony, she figured. Everyone else seemed to have the same reaction to his presence and contributions to their discussions, save for Banner. Fury however, wasn't taking any excuses for it.

"You know, sometimes I figure you're just in a bad mood, Nick. The idiots at work, someone spilled their coffee on you, traffic jams. Now, I think that it's because you've got a stick permanently shoved up your ass. Am I close?"

The looks being exchanged between the two men were deadly, and one who was always trying to ease tension, Steve quickly interrupted the two of them before Fury put a bullet in Tony's mouth in the hopes it’d shut him up. "Let's start with that stick of Loki’s. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon," he said.

Fury shook his head. "I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked, the confusion having come back on his face. "I do not understand."

Steve seemed rather excited as he sat up straighter in his chair. "I do!" he exclaimed, before slouching down a little more when he saw the dumbfounded looks he was returned with. "I understood that reference."

Tony rolled his eyes.

* * *

When she'd had her bow fitted, Coulson had told her about the training room on the fourth level. He'd said that hardly anyone used it, especially since SHIELD's finest archer wasn't with them at the moment, and that they'd be offended if she didn't put it to some use. He bragged that it was one of the finer rooms aboard the Helicarrier, definitely worth a visit. She hadn't had too much time to go on an exploration of the giant boat, but after Fury had dismissed them from their little conversation on the birdge, she decided that now was as good a time as ever to check it out.

Walking in quietly, she made her way over to the small control panel that sat almost directly in front of her. Getting used to SHIELD's technology wasn't something that just happened in a few hours, she was still adjusting to the speed and the actual handiness of them. Being back in Twelve meant a life of little to no technology, due to the belief that simplest was easiest and less was better, so walking onto the Helicarrier itself was one hell of a culture shock for her. Everything else only heightened it.

She reached down and tapped on the screen, scrolling through all of the training options. There was agility, every weapons training practice in the book – she could have sworn she saw knife throwing – all sorts of different options available to her until she finally landed on archery. Selecting it, a whole menu of things popped up, confusing her even further. Katniss bit down on her lip and quickly chose what seemed to be the simplest option, which was target practice. That was what she needed.

She walked out onto the mat, bow in hand and quiver of arrows strapped to her back just like usual, watching as the lights went down around her. A golden beam of light then scanned over the room, taking the shape of a human. It was a little inhumane to have the target as a person in her opinion, but Katniss didn't really figure that SHIELD's targets were deer and turkey. The moving target sprinted head on at her, Katniss realizing that the simulation was going to attack her. She _also_ wasn’t used to her targets fighting back, but she certainly embraced a challenge. Running now solely on instinct, her arm flew behind her head to grab an arrow, stringing it up and then letting it fly only in a matter of seconds. It landed directly between the eyes of the target, exploding into enlarged golden cubes.

That couldn't be the only one, and relying solely on her hearing, she heard the whoosh of what had to be another target manifesting. Whirling around as her hand reached for another arrow, she saw the target approaching her just as the last one had. Stringing up the arrow, she hit the target right through the chest and whipped around after sensing the slightest bit of motion from another target behind her. This one had a mock gun in its hand, and wasted no time pulling the trigger. Ducking to avoid the simulated bullet, she did a tuck and roll before firing the arrow she'd reached to get directly into the heart of the target. Katniss then picked up on motion in the rafters, watching as one of the targets ran down the length of a rafter. She kept the arrow in her bow, following the target before letting it fly a few seconds ahead of the pace. Sure enough, the hologram burst in a shower of golden cubes. Her sight not taken off the rafters, she mirrored the same repetitive action of drawing her arrow and firing at an impending hologram, not even having to watch it in order to hit it directly in the chest. Gale had always told her she was a good shot, and that being able to shoot a target down without even looking at it was impressive even for star archers.  _Gale._

Her mind raced off to the thought of seeing Gale in Stuttgart, stalking into the laboratory with those glassy blue eyes of his. How could that have even happened? How did Loki know that she had been recruited before even knowing who she was, how did Loki know where to find Gale, how did Loki even  _convince_  that of Gale or possess him, what did he plan on doing with Gale? The questions wouldn't stop bouncing around in her head. She just wanted to know the answers. She'd get her answers; that was a fact. She was willing to do whatever it took, even if it meant going and talking to Loki to weasel them out of him.

Lowering her bow to her side, she turned around to walk back over to the panel and switch up the modes on it—firing at human holograms was challenging, sure, but not challenging enough for her in the way she needed right now—and was startled at the sight of seeing none other than Steve Rogers standing there. Her bow raised and an arrow already drawn back and ready to fire thanks to hunter's instinct, it took a second for her to let it register that Steve wasn't a threat. He was just overly curious and overly stupid, since there was a chance of her firing, and a high one at that.

"Didn't mean to scare you, ma’am—"

"Steve," she cut him short, taking the arrow and putting it back in the quiver. "I'm a friend, not your superior. You don't have to call me ma'am every time I almost kill you."

He seemed slightly shocked at the sound of her saying that. "Almost kill me? You mean you were actually planning on firing?" he asked, his voice in somewhat disbelief.

"You can't just sneak up on a hunter and expect them not to shoot," she argued. "I rely on my instincts, my senses; hearing happens to be one of them. Hear something, shoot. That’s the logic behind it." The glass doors to the training center slid open, Steve walking in. Katniss sat down on the bench against the wall, grabbing her water bottle and taking a long swig of it.

"So you're a hunter," he repeated, sitting down next to her, but not so close that she would have accidentally brushed his shoulder whenever she set her bottle back down.

Katniss nodded. "Since I was twelve."

"That's pretty impressive."

"It's survival mode. You do what you have to do to survive, and for me, that was picking up a bow and arrow," Katniss shrugged, messing with the top of the bow that was currently resting up against the bench next to her.

"Well I have to say, you're very good. I sort of, well, you know, watched you shoot," Steve admitted, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. A small smile spread across Katniss' lips as she stared back down into her lap. He then nudged her slightly. "Hey, I overheard you on the comm back in Germany. Why were you so tense?" Her head lifted to see the now serious expression on his face.

"It's a long story," she sighed.

"I was on ice for seventy years, I've got the time."

Staring back down at her finger nails, she shook her head slightly. "When Fury recruited me, I left my whole life behind. Wasn’t like it was hard; he had something I wanted and I couldn’t refuse him. I didn’t say a word to anyone about leaving, I just…went with him. And that was the end of talking to the people I left behind. Didn’t know if they missed me, were looking for me, if they’d even noticed. I didn’t expect to ever see them again, really. And then on that rooftop in Germany, I…I saw him." She paused for a minute, trying to find the right words to string together. She hadn't said it out loud yet; saying the words out loud would only make it that much more real and she desperately didn’t want for it to be. "My friend, Gale, he was there…and he wasn't  _him_ , you know? His eyes were this really weird blue, and he was breaking and entering into that lab, and I..." Katniss' voice cracked slightly, before she scolded herself internally.  _You're crying over this? Really? You're much stronger than this, Katniss. You can't cry over something like this every time it happens. Life continues to go on. You have a job. Count your breathing and lose the waterworks show on the way._ "Loki," she finally spit out. "He possessed Gale; he's using him like a dirty little slave dog. Like Selvig, like Agent Barton, and I don't know how I can save him."

Steve rested a hand on her shoulder. "You can't save everyone—"

"Gale I can," she cut him off, standing up. "I don't care what the hell happens, I don't care if it's impossible. I'll make it possible. I _will_ save him."

"And if it comes down between you and him?" Steve asked quietly.

Katniss was silent for a moment; she didn't know if she was more appalled that Steve had dared suggest that or if she was angrier with herself that she hadn't thought of it even coming down to that. "I'll cross that bridge when I get there," she muttered.

She and Steve were locked in a stare for a moment, before he slowly stood up next to her. "We've got quite the long day ahead of us, we both need some sleep. Come on, you can show me to my bunk," he offered with a smile. “I’ve got no idea where it’s at.”

"To be honest, I don't even remember where my _own_ bunk is," she responded, laughing a little. "But yeah, I suppose, I could use the extra sleep." The two of them then made their way out of the training room, down the corridors of level four and on their way to where Katniss would hopefully find their bunks. They weren't talking to one another, just walking beside each other in solitude. She found it a little bit comforting, but more awkward than she'd expected it to be.

Rounding a corner, they quite literally bumped into none other than Tony Stark himself. Scowling, Katniss smoothed the braid out on her shoulder before sending him a trademark glare. "You're not the only one in the hallway, Stark," she snapped.

"Whoa, someone's got a bit of a bite," he replied, holding his hands up in innocence. "Where you kids been, making out behind some pillar?" Katniss could feel her heart speed up in her chest and her face heat up; Steve was no different, his face was about as red as the stripes on his precious shield.

"I was shooting," she growled through clenched teeth.

"Arrows of love? C'mon Cupid, you can't tell me you two don't look like Clint and Na—" Tony started, then stopped dead on once he realized what had come out of his mouth.

"Who?" Katniss asked, looking over at Steve as if he knew the answer as well. He just shook his head, her gaze snapping back to a flustered and very, very nervous Tony Stark. "Who do we look like?"

His eyes darting around in order to find some sort of escape but even more so to avoid her gaze, Tony looked down the hallway. "Uhhh…you hear that? I think it's the big guy, roaring for me to hurry my ass up into the lab."

Katniss' eyes narrowed. "You act like we’re all of a sudden deaf."

"Mind connection, it's a scientist thing, gotta go,  _bye_!" Tony said, and before Katniss could question his hastiness or better yet, his sanity, he was already sprinting head on down the hallway.

"What do you reckon that was about?" Steve asked, staring at Tony's receding figure along with Katniss.

"Who knows," she mumbled, before looking back over at Steve. "I take back what I said earlier."

"What's that?"

"I don't think I could use the extra sleep. I  _need_  it."


	7. and so, the unraveling begins

Sleep proved to be futile by the time Katniss had walked Steve to his bunk, made her way back to her own and gotten turned down for the night. It was nice to not be in a tactical outfit for a bit, her hair out of the braid and her comm off, but coming about sleep was complicated. It was hard enough sleeping on the damn ship, what with announcements and updates coming over the PA system every five minutes—she realized that headphones were a necessity she didn't even know she needed—and the general echo of all the hustling movement. Her mind also had other plans for her, tangled in the web that was what Tony Stark had implanted in her mind.

Just from reading the file on Tony, she knew that he was a genius. The smartest people in the world toppled over one other to get to work with Tony, to even be in the same room as him. There had been one line that was circled in red pen, so heavily circled that Katniss could feel the indent on the page of his file that always stuck out in her mind every time she thought of him:  _File cabinet—knows more than you think he does, makes and keeps plenty of secrets._ It was certainly cryptic and intriguing, with not much more to go on. Just like Fury's very short fuse with Tony and the nicknames, and the way he'd clammed up almost instantly after making the comparison to someone, someone she wasn’t any the wiser on, Katniss was in the dark as ever. Was this how working for SHIELD always? Walking around mindless on instructions, never knowing the truth behind anything? It was one shitty way to live, that much she knew for sure.

Sighing, she rolled out of her bunk and slid on her pair of boots resting next to the foot of the bunk. She couldn't lie there any longer and just stare at the ceiling; she'd go insane if she did. Katniss tried to ease the door open, having to use a lot of her upper arm strength to pry the door from its hinges seeing as how it was an automated sliding door and she knew if she pressed the button to open it, she'd set the little beeper off and would wake up everyone else on her corridor that was trying to get some rest. Finally getting it open wide enough for her to squeeze past, she let it close before shoving her hands down into the pockets of her sweatpants and started walking through the corridors.

There was no set destination really, Katniss knew she just needed to move her legs and clear her head. A thought to drop in for a visit with Bruce would be relaxing, but he was probably asleep himself or working on figuring out what the function of Loki's magical glow stick was. And if he was in the lab, chances are, so was Tony, and that was the last person Katniss wanted to see. Thor was out of the question, she wasn't in the mood for trying to translate Shakespearean English to modern day, and his brother didn't keep very good company either. She could always go talk to Steve, but Steve was sleeping as well and she wasn't about to interrupt him either. All of her eliminations left her in solitude.

She rounded the corner, making her way back down to Level Three. It was slightly less crowded than Level Two, which was right below the bridge, and she didn't have to dodge people with every step. Passing by one of the empty gymnasiums, she could see that a few agents were still doing late night training, and for a moment, the thought flashed her mind to maybe go inside and work some of the insomnia off until she was so exhausted she'd pass out and get a few moments of rest.

"Can't sleep?" a voice inquired from behind her, startling her. It was just Coulson, an empathic smile directed in her way. Running a hand over the top of her head sheepishly, Katniss shrugged.

"I've always been a bit of an insomniac, I think being in a new environment doesn't really help that much," she explained. Taking a quick look at Coulson, he was still dressed in his suit, arms folded over his chest respectfully, still the perfect agent. She however, was in sweatpants, a ratty blue t-shirt and her hair hanging in her face, the perfect example of a hot mess. He didn't seem to care at all though, just simply dismissed it. It was respectable; had she run into Tony, she was sure he would have cheerfully commented on how she looked as though she'd walked in off the street.

"That's most of us. Fury takes in the insomniacs since we work 'round the clock," Coulson replied.

"Do you ever get any sleep?" Katniss blurted out. "I mean, does Fury ask you to sleep in the suit in the case you have to roll out of bed and fight off the bad guys?"

Coulson chuckled. "We're not firefighters, Katniss. We do get a chance to rest. It's just not the recommended seven hours or more."

"Lovely," Katniss groaned, a laugh of her own falling past her lips and joining in with Coulson's light laughter. She then stopped, looking over at him with eyes wide with concern. "Oh god, I'm not interrupting you from doing something Fury's asked you to do?"

Shaking his head persistently, Coulson rests a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "You're fine, Katniss, don't worry about it. I'm just doing a bit of patrolling around the corridors, making sure everything's alright."

"You called me Katniss," she found herself saying, staring through the glass walls of the gymnasium at a group of agents lifting weights. Her eyes then lifted up to where his were, also trained on the same sight. "Why?"

"That's your name, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but I mean, I…it's been Everdeen or one of Tony's dumb nicknames, or ma'am from the much too polite Steve, or Lady Everdeen from Shakespeare," she rambled on, flexing her fingers and keeping her eyes the movement. "I don't even know if anyone's actually called me by my first name since I got on this ship except for when I force them to say it through introductions."

"Doesn't feel much like your own name?" Coulson added.

Katniss raised her head. "Yeah, how—"

"Tony assumed my first name was agent when I showed up to get him on board, and he’s met me more than once. When you're a part of this world, sometimes you forget that you're still a regular person; it's just a more extreme job than most people have. Don't let the whole name thing get to you; it's an identity crisis that a lot of people usually go through their first or second year working for us. You know who you are."

"I'm not so sure about that," Katniss mumbled in response, thinking of the whole situation of her mysterious parentage and the nicknames Tony kept giving her and the very big culture shock that she had had to get used to in twenty seconds before being tossed into the real world. Being so far from what she'd always known. She knew the man next to her was just trying to console her, but it felt like a bunch of empty words. How could she know who she was when she didn't know the first real thing about herself? Coulson gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Then give it a little time," he said, removing his hand from her shoulder and starting off in the opposite direction. "You will."

* * *

Katniss stared at the tray in front of her, examining the contents on it, completely bewildered. Bruce let out a chuckle, his lips drawn out in a clearly amused smirk. The two of them were silent as Katniss studied the meal in front of her, trying to find some sort of opinion or question about what was in front of her to preface with, but she was drawing a total blank. She could feel Bruce's inquisitive eyes bearing into her side, probably elated at her sheer confusion. "What…is this?" she choked out finally, taking the edge of the plastic fork and poking the side of the sandwich with it.

" _That_  is a hamburger," Bruce announced. Katniss picked up the hamburger, as Bruce called it, taking off the bun that was on top and examining the contents underneath. She heard him suppress a chuckle as she stared at it, trying to figure out what was all on it.

"No, I mean what  _is_  this?" she repeated, holding out towards his face. She accidentally jutted her arms out too far and realized that only once she saw Bruce leaning away from the sandwich in her hands. Lowering it slightly, he shook his head, still a smirk resonating on his lips.

"This is cheese, beef—well, we just suppose that it's beef but no one ever really knows," he joked, seeing the horrified look on the younger girl's face. "Anyways, there's ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato and pickles all on there. I spared you the onions."

Katniss rolled her eyes. "So caring, aren't you?"

"Always." Katniss had swung by the lab after sleeping in a bit late—she blamed the horny couple that happened to be a bunk over for keeping her up until very early hours, and since her comm had been off, she hadn't heard any of Fury's orders with her name tacked to them. She figured that she was safe and in the clear, since he wasn't hunting her down with a burning passion. By the time she found Bruce's laboratory, he was taking a lunch break and he'd told her that she was more than welcome to tag along. Katniss had jumped on the opportunity to spend some time with Bruce without having to be in the same room as Tony Stark. Before finally managing to close her eyes from sheer exhaustion that night, she had settled upon the conclusion that being near Tony would only cloud her mind with more questions, and therefore more confusion, and put herself in the position to be called more cryptic nicknames that weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. So, she was going to avoid him at all costs.

It wasn't her best plan, but it was the only kind of plan she had. All other options ended with someone dying or in the hospital wing.

Scrunching up her face at the lunch Bruce had bought for her—he'd been all but appalled when she informed him that back in District Twelve all food was something that had been grown or killed. There was no such thing as a restaurant, whatever that happened to be. His promise to her was to get some  _real_  food in her, and while she'd been terrified, she was reluctant in letting him pick her lunch for her. Now however, she was deciding that maybe it wasn't the brightest idea. "Go on," he insisted. "Try it. I wouldn't give you anything poisoned."

"I know that," Katniss retorted. "I mean, do you just…use your hands, or cut it up, or what? They didn't include the Hamburgers for Beginners pamphlet with my meal, you know."

"You pick it up with both your hands—or just one of them, if you're feeling like really showing off your skills," Bruce teased. "And you just…eat it." Katniss shook her head, awkwardly picking up her hamburger from the tray and holding it up to her mouth. "Now you take a bite," he prompted. She did as he said, taking a small bite of the sandwich and chewing it up profusely to decide whether or not she liked it.

"Well?" She continued to chew, her face twisting in confusion as she swallowed it down, placing the sandwich back on the tray.

"It's okay, but there's just something…weird about it," she finally admitted. Bruce just shrugged in response.

"Understandable; it’s probably the beef. Don’t worry though, you'll get used to burgers and other delicacies in the modern world as life goes on. Lucky for you," he began, sliding over a small bowl filled with something that seemed to resemble lettuce with vegetables in it. "I got you a salad." The quizzical look that he was met with made his shoulders slouch slightly as he handed her a fork. "Don't tell me you don't know what a salad is."

"Um…"

Bruce gave her a small smile in reassurance. "A salad’s just lettuce and other some other vegetables all thrown together. You guys grew vegetables back in your little time-trapped town, right?" He'd been a little skeptical of Twelve when Katniss explained the whole situation to him; how they were isolated from most society, believed that less was better. When she told that she could never remember having a full stomach a day in her life, he told her that Kolkata sounded like a hell of a better place to settle than the little town stuck in a different century.

Katniss nodded, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork. "This is more down my alley," she mused after taking a mouthful of it. It was bland, not too much of a taste, so it wasn't way too much for her poor culture-shocked taste buds. Taking the tray with her hamburger that was missing a bite and sliding it towards Bruce, she smiled cheekily. "And this seems to be down yours."

"You're something else, you know," Bruce said, shaking his head.

She shrugged, waving her fork in the air before eating the bite of salad. "According to Fury, I'm teeming with charm and personality."

"Fury's…"

"Fury?" she finished, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. Bruce mirrored the same shrug she'd given him only a few moments ago. "Well, whatever he happens to be, he owes me some answers."

"Answers?" Bruce asked.

"Eye for an eye sort of thing we have. Fury told me if I helped him out on this whole wild goose chase, he'd tell me about my real parents," she muttered, thinking about the nonexistent progress she'd made with that. Fury hadn't even so much as given her one drop of information in terms of who they were or if he even knew who her parents were in the first place. Instead, he was taking the time to bless Tony out for every toe he put out of line and keep them all corralled like a bunch of children that couldn’t be trusted.

"Real parents?" The new voice added to the mix frightened Katniss; until she registered that it was only Steve. Yes, only Steve, who was currently standing behind her with the most innocently puzzled look one could ever don on their face. Bruce looked down rather quickly, clamming up without missing a beat. Katniss looked back and forth between both of the men, unsure of what she was supposed to say. "Oh," Steve said, the way his eyes widening signaled that he had come to some sort of deduction in his mind. "Am I interrupting something here?"

"No!" Katniss and Bruce both insisted in the same hurried tone at once. Katniss could see the slow blush creeping into Bruce's cheeks, a blush that was probably making its way onto her own face. She realized that this probably looked like…well, something more than it actually was. And leave it to Steve to be the one to point that out.

"No, you're not interrupting anything," Katniss continued, putting her fork down. "Did you want to sit with us?"

"Oh, no, it's fine, I've got to get back to the lab anyways," Bruce chimed in, grabbing the sides of his tray. Katniss stared at him, even more puzzled than Steve had looked at her, confused as to why he was all of a sudden running off. "We still have stuff to do. I don't think you want to come in and sit on mine and Tony's conversations about science for the next few hours, and I also don't think you want Tony coming and dragging me off either."

"Yeah, no, you hit that nail right on the head. Have fun," she grumbled as he stood up. The pair shot each other a small smile.

"I had fun teaching you all about burgers," he said before disappearing. Steve, who had sat down beside her as she watched Bruce vanish into the crowd of agents, turned to face Katniss.

"You don’t know what a burger is?" he asked, and Katniss shook her head in response.

"It's…another story for another day," she said dully, reaching for her water bottle and twisting the cap off of it. "So, what brings you down to this end of the ship, Cap?"

"I would say that I was looking for you, but that wouldn't really be the truth." Katniss raised an eyebrow as she took a swig of water. He sighed. "I got lost on my way to find you and ask if you wanted to come do some training with me. Not that you, you know, need it, but I just figured since you were shooting the other day you’d maybe want to—"

"Steve," Katniss interrupted him. "Breathe, it's alright." Steve visibly relaxed his shoulders; Katniss hadn't even realized how stiff he'd been when asking her that question. Giving him a small smile, she nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Let's do it."

* * *

"No, I'm not doing this."

"Come  _on_ , Steve. We've been debating this for fifteen minutes now."

"It's not a debate," he protested. "I'm not doing it." Katniss was standing in front of him, hands on her hips and an irritated scowl on her face. She and Steve had currently been standing on the mat in the middle of one of the isolated gyms down on a lower level for a good fifteen minutes, arguing over something as plain and stupid as sparring. Katniss had gotten bored very quickly with the whole weights and running on a treadmill thing. There were no training simulations down here – that gym had been conveniently occupied when they went to go claim it, and she was craving a sort of action she surely wasn't getting any of running in place. So she'd asked Steve to do a little mock fighting with her, and he'd acted as though she had told him she'd done something as offensive as burning the American flag. He refused, knowing that she wasn’t a SHIELD agent and that he had his whole super strength shtick over her and was therefore completely out of her fighting league. She kept insisting she didn’t care, that she needed the practice, but he wouldn’t budge. Rolling her eyes at him, she let out an irritated huff.

"Steve, for the  _millionth_  time, I don’t care. I am telling you not to hold back on me. This is just training, I know you don't mean anything by it. It's just for fun."

"You call this fun?" he responded.

"Technically, I call shooting birds out of the sky fun, but since we're on a…thing that flies higher than most birds, I'm stripped."

Steve let out a sigh of his own. "Katniss, I don't want to—"

"What? Hurt me?" Katniss snorted. "You think I can’t hold up against you or take a hit?"

"That's not the point of all—" He was cut off yet again by Katniss, but this time, it was her fist coming right up to meet his face. Despite him not seeing it coming, he managed to catch her wrist right before it collided with his face. He was rendered somewhat speechless, shocked that she'd gone to throw a punch and the fact that she had a satisfactory smirk colored all over her face all the while. "Are you really about to hit me?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Rule number one of sparring, expected the unexpected," she stated, her other hand reaching over to pry his off of her wrist. He had an iron grip, so she did the only thing that could come to mind. Bringing her leg up, she delivered a kick to Steve's abdomen, his grip loosening on her wrist and allowing her to wiggle free. He had some sort of look in his eyes, not one that she'd ever seen before and it intrigued her. So he knew that she was pushing him like this on purpose. Lifting an eyebrow, she locked her eyes onto his. "Still not up for a little fight?"

Steve didn't say anything, just tilted his head to the side before launching himself at her. Katniss hadn't been too prepared for his sudden movements, and she could see his sharp uppercut coming from out of the corner of her eyes. Ducking slightly and feeling proud of herself for dodging the hit, she finds herself regretting that as she felt his other fist swipe her right in the ribs. It wasn't enough to hurt, but she could feel it sting slightly. "Well, at least you’re not holding back," she muttered through clenched teeth as she rested her hand on his shoulder and kicked the back of his legs. He didn't fall to his knees like she'd been hoping; instead, he was able to grab her by the waist better, and sent her straight to the floor.

"You have no idea."

A low groan escaped her as she met the mat with a low 'thud', Steve rolling back onto her and pinning her arms beside her head. She could see the word hanging off the tip of his tongue, but she wasn't about to accept any kind of defeat without a fight. Wrapping one of her legs around him as best she could, she kicked the mat and flipped the two of them over. Katniss herself had been slightly surprised she'd been able to pull that off; usually that move was her last resort move when she fought with Gale, and Gale lacked a lot of the muscle that Steve had. Straddling him, she took one of her legs and kept one arm pinned to his side. His other hand was currently wrestling with her own, his attempt to flip them back over. Finally, Katniss managed to hold it down behind his head. "I win," she panted, grinning as the two of them tried to catch their breath.

"Gotta hand it to you, you're not a bad fighter."

"Gale and I sparred all the time whenever we were bored in the woods," she said, removing her grip off his arms and standing up. She then extended a hand to him to help him up. He took it graciously, but before she could assist in pulling him off the ground, she found her legs being kicked out from underneath her and being pulled back down onto the mat. Steve smirked as he landed on top of her, straddling her just like she'd done to him only moments before. A growl escaped her lips as she tried to fight off his hands from getting a hold of hers. He was able to outsmart her and forced both arms over her head this time, having a good enough hold on her that she wasn't able to squirm out of his grasp.

"Who won, again?" he questioned smugly, Katniss scoffing loudly.

"The match was already over," she insisted.

"Rule number one," he said, mimicking her tone from earlier. "Expect the unexpected."

"Bitch," she snarled under her breath. Steve just laughed at her as he stood up, walking away from her.  _Smart man_ , she thought to herself as she pulled herself off of the mat and over to where he was now guzzling water.  _Keeping his distance to keep from inciting round two._  "Throw me mine?" Katniss asked him, tilting her head in the direction of the water bottle that was sitting on the bench next to his. He complied wordlessly, it landing neatly in her hands.

"Thanks."

"No problem," he replied, sitting down on the bench in front of her. "You said you and Gale sparred a lot before?"

Resting a hand on her hips out of habit as she took a swig of water, she shrugged her shoulders. "Wasn’t exactly the kind of sparring I’m sure you’re used to,” she clarified. "It was more like rough-housing. We just wrestled to wrestle; there was no real objective in mind. We'd come home with leaves in my hair, dirt on our faces and all in the cuts we accidentally gave ourselves from scratching and rolling over sharp sticks. Or thorns."

"Sounds fun," Steve said, although the tone in his voice implied that he didn't really mean that. She just rolled her eyes playfully, shaking her head. The two of them stayed silent after that, still trying to regulate their breathing from their rather interesting fight. Steve looked up at Katniss, who was still standing in front of him and had her head tipped backwards, staring at the ceiling. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked.

"Sure, I guess," she replied.

"What were you and Dr. Banner talking about earlier, about real parents?" Katniss winced at the mention of it, Steve's perplexed voice asking the very question she wasn’t looking to speculate on. "I'm sorry," he quickly took back, evidently sensing her annoyance or seeing her eyes flutter shut. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"It’s alright," Katniss said, her legs thanking her as she sat down next to Steve. He slid over a bit to make more room for her, eyes trained on her. "I told you when Fury came to get me, I didn’t have any hesitations about leaving, and that…that was true. He claimed he had something I wanted, something I didn’t really know I wanted, I guess, since I didn’t know any different and figured I never would." She didn't look up at Steve, but kept her eyes on the movement of her fingers absentmindedly around the water bottle in her hand. “Where I lived, my parents…everyone always talked about it behind my back, whispering about it, that I wasn’t really their kid. My dad died when I was younger in a mining accident, mom shut out the world afterwards, so it didn’t really help with the rumors. But I could see it, everyone could. They were…like porcelain dolls, blonde hair, pale blue eyes, fair skin, and then there’s me, the genetic anomaly. I tried not to buy into it because I didn’t have a choice, but it still follows you. And then here comes a guy in an eye patch, confirming all the rumors and extending an olive branch”

Katniss paused for a moment, letting her gaze drift up to where Steve's eyes were, keeping a close watch on her. "What would you do?" she said, sighing softly. "If for all your life, you've tried everything to convince yourself of something and then someone walks right into your life and shatters all that work, offers to give you answers?" Steve didn't respond and left the both of them in a hanging silence. Her eyes dropped back down to her hands.

"Fury told me that he'd tell me about them and who they are if I agreed to help him out. So far, I've gotten nothing out of him," she admitted dejectedly.

"Then go talk to him," Steve said.

Katniss shook her head. "Not that easy. He won’t budge, is always too busy or has an excuse. Says I’m not there yet, whatever that means. Besides, he's probably trying to…choreograph a drug bust in Botswana."

"Katniss." Steve's voice was quiet and sincere, her head snapping up to meet his gaze once more. “Sitting here and asking questions you already have the answers to doesn’t help you any. You just took me on without blinking twice even though I’m genetically modified and tapped me out; you can stand up to Fury if that’s what it takes to get what you want.”

Mulling over what he’d said for a brief second, Katniss slowly stood up. "I'm getting my answers," she announced determinedly.

"'Atta girl," Steve encouraged as he watched Katniss make her way over to the door. She then paused for a moment as the door slid open before turning around with a smug grin on her face.

"Glad to know you agree that I won." Her lips curled up once more in a smirk, sauntering out of the room and disappearing from sight. Steve couldn't help but to shake his head in amusements, starting out of the gym a few moments later. After all, he’d been right: sitting around didn’t do anyone much good, and he needed some answers of his own.

* * *

"Miss Everdeen," Fury greeted disinterestedly, only half-paying her any attention despite the fact that she was obviously there for a reason. The bridge was still swarming with activity, the Director standing over Agent Sitwell running another face trace on Barton and Selvig. Katniss forced herself to take a deep breath; keeping her temper in check was her top priority. If it got the better of her, she could kiss swaying Fury goodbye.

"Fury," she replied, her reply soft and passive enough to the point she hardly recognized it as her own voice speaking. "I need to ask you something"

"No, you don't have permission to push Stark off the edge of the Helicarrier. Believe it or not, he's actually of some use to us."

Behind him, she grimaced. _There goes that idea._ "Wasn’t planning on it.” With him walking away from the desks, she had no choice but to follow him around like a lost puppy. It didn't take long for her to catch far enough up to his pace so she was right beside of him. One thing was for sure, Fury was a power walker. "I was going to ask you about my parents." Her voice dropped a little as she said the last little bit.

Fury spun around on his heel, his eye looking her up and down as if she was Loki or something. "And why is that?" he inquired, his tone icy.

"Well, I…" Katniss trailed off, trying to think of the easiest way to put it without offending him, since she apparently had a knack for doing that whenever she opened her mouth. She hadn’t prepared any sort of speech on her walk over, which she realized she perhaps should have done seeing as how in her pause, Fury had already started off once more, leaving her behind. Sighing, Katniss jogged to catch up with him once more as he made his way back to his usual post that overlooked all of the bridge techs. Ending up behind him, she exhaled slowly before starting again. “Rogers, Banner and Stark all here, working on Loki’s spear and figuring out what it’s got to do with the Tesseract, Loki’s sitting in a cell in the lower level. We’ve made progress, you said you’d start talking once we did.”

"You think cracking the surface of all this mess is considered progress?"

"What do you consider progress?"

Turning back around to face her once more, Fury started up again. "Progress is getting Barton and Selvig back. Progress is figuring out where the hell Loki is keeping the Tesseract. Progress is keeping a bunch of ugly ass aliens off this earth and making sure that we don't lose anyone in the process. That's progress, Miss Everdeen," he rattled off before returning to the monitors.

Reaching over and swiping the monitors off, she finally caught his attention as he turned to glare at her. His mouth began to open, most likely to scold her, but she didn’t allow him the chance. She didn’t take too kindly to being shut down, and her patience was rapidly drying up. “You are keeping your end of the deal, whether you want to or not. I don’t care what you tell me, but you aren’t going to continue to ignore me like I’m some lackey that only exists to shine your shoes and bring you your daily reports,” she spat, eyes wild as she glowered at him. “Talk.”

Fury had his eye trained on her very carefully, almost threatening her to not make another move. "You’re certainly got some nerve, Miss Everdeen. I told you I would tell you about your parents, but you agreed to help me find the Tesseract. Right now, that is our top priority, and until I’ve got my eye on that cube, I don’t have the time to give you a recap of your origin story,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice.

"That’s bullshit."

" _Miss Everdeen_." Katniss fell silent, still fuming as Fury talked. "My mind is made up." He pushed past her, making his way past the meeting table and heading for the main corridors.

"I’ll go to Tony," she called out after him, voice slightly shaking as she tried to suppress her anger. Fury stopped dead in his tracks. "Sure does seem like he knows something, seeing as how you keep threatening him within an inch of his life every time he as much as _looks_ at me. He seems like the type who’d love to tell me all about it, maybe I’ll let him do the honors."

"Tony doesn't know much about what's good for him," Fury chuckled, swiveling around ever so slightly. When he looked up from the floor, his eye met hers. "You go to Stark, you’ll get exactly what you _don’t_ want. Probably get more out of Loki than you would Stark."

"Oh really?" Katniss questioned, continuing to push her luck. "Maybe I'll drop by the prison cell and let him make his phone call."

"You'll do no such thing."

"Be my guest to try and stop me."

Fury took a step in her direction, looming over her with a threatening scowl coloring his face as he spoke. “I can take you right back to where I found you, Miss Everdeen, you were the one who agreed to come along and help out,” he growled. “I don’t have room on this boat for people who aren’t of any use. So be of use.”

"And if I already have been?" she quipped back.

"Then wait. I better not catch you so much as by the wishing well asking for an answer." With that, Fury stomped back towards the corridors, Katniss going in the opposite direction with steam probably pouring out of her ears.

Defeat, of course. God, where did Fury get off on ordering everyone around and being a complete asshole about it? She couldn’t see the appeal of working under him, even if the amenities surrounding it were nice. About the time she’d made it off the deck and into a corridor, still fuming and her vision slightly red, her day only _continued_ to get better with the lovely surprise of Tony Stark nearly bumping into her. She bit her tongue, holding in her exasperation as she leaned up against the wall, allowing him to walk by. Her luck was only growing more horrid by the hour. He caught her eyes as he waltzed past, back to the lab she assumed, shooting her a subtle wink. Under his breath, he was humming the same thing he had been the other night, the children’s rhyme she still couldn’t put her finger on. Right about the time he was completely out of her sight and long gone, the name finally clicked inside her head. _Itsy Bitsy Spider._

That was it.

_Screw Fury._


	8. the widow's web

Katniss hadn't been hunting in what felt like ages despite it only having been two days, but for the past few hours, she had been on a hunt where Tony Stark was the target. She'd gotten  _very_  sidetracked, in her defense; her sparring session with Steve had definitely called for her to take a quick shower, to freshen up and get all the sweat washed off her. She'd had every intention of going down to Bruce’s lab where she was sure Tony would be as well after she'd changed out of the really cozy robe that she'd swiped from someone on her corridor, but she should have known better than that: the road to hell was paved with good intentions. She ended up taking a nap that lasted much longer than necessary, and by the time she woke up, the sky outside was no longer a light blue, but a black velvet. After changing into something that wasn't a fuzzy robe (which she took off with a great dread), she had one set mission, to beeline down to the lab and confront Tony. Her stomach, however had other plans for her that couldn’t be avoided. After detouring to the cafeteria once more and grabbing something small to eat—hardly anyone was down there with her, it was simply that late—she was finally able to get herself back on track and focused on what mattered, and that was finding Tony.

Hunting turkeys? Easy. Hunting Tony Stark? Near impossible.

With a huge place like the Helicarrier, it was a reasonable walk from the cafeteria all the way to Bruce's lab. She had some time to herself, using the walk to prepare for what she was going to say in order to avoid having the same outcome that she’d had after her confrontation with Fury.  _Tony, you're incredibly vexing and I want nothing more for you to ‘accidentally’ fall off the edge of this ship, but I get the feeling you know something I don't, so do enlighten me. Tony, you're probably the smartest man on the face of the earth so by default you know much more than I do, tell me a thing or two about my parents. Tony, talk or I'll put an arrow through your skull. Tony, do you have a kid no one knows anything about or do you just thoroughly enjoy nursery rhymes?_ The possibilities of approaches were endless, all of which ended in the same very likely result: Tony kept his mouth shut. Or Fury killed them both.

As she jumped from the second to last step to the floor on the staircase down to the lab, she found her feet carrying her faster towards her destination where she hoped the last of her luck remained. He was Tony Stark, surely he wouldn't be sleeping at half past midnight since genius never took a minute off. Considering all the shit Fury had Bruce doing, Tony was probably sharing half the load and even then, that'd set them at working around the clock. Something about monsters and magic added an extra layer of complication to everything that needed to be done. This was why she partially missed Twelve: simplest might have really and truly meant easiest.

The large expanses of window that exposed the lab were suddenly on the wall beside her, and as she peered in to see if Tony was there—which, he was, standing next to Bruce of course—she was slightly taken aback at the sight of who was also in there with them. Steve. Immediately stepping back to where the walls weren't glass, she pressed an ear to the wall and did her best to listen in. The walls weren't that thick on this ship, after all, she could testify first hand that the money building this place had clearly gone elsewhere.

"How long have you known about this?"

"I take offense; I don't appreciate being accused of knowing things that I may or may not even know about," Tony rattled off, true to form.

"It's not me accusing you of knowing it," Steve said. "It's me asking you how long you've known."

"Look Capsicle, I think it's cute that you care that much about your girlfriend—"

"— _not_  my girlfriend—"

"—to want to help her out, but don't." Katniss peered forward ever so slightly, watching as Tony turned away from whatever he was working on, his facial expression solemn.  _Well that's a new look._  "There is nothing we can do; Fury's ass is just sitting around waiting for him to walk back through the door and announce his return, and while I personally don't believe in the approach, I have to go along with it if I want to keep from walking the plank. Baby bird deserves to see her pops, I agree,” Tony said, popping something small in his mouth. "But Fury's too concerned with other stuff. We’re out of options."

"Then we unconcern him. That’s an option."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Tony mused, swiping another monitor on.

"If you don't tell her, then I will," Steve threatened. Tony lifted his head long enough to give Steve a look, raising an eyebrow. Bruce then loudly cleared his throat, making eye contact with Katniss who was slightly embarrassed that she'd been caught. The other men looked to Bruce to see why he'd suddenly made a grand reappearance in their conversation.

"I think we have company." Katniss straightened herself out against the wall, quickly taking a deep breath and then striding in front of the glass windows confidently, acting as though she hadn't been eavesdropping on their conversation since she arrived.  _Play dumb. They won’t be any the wiser if you don’t let them think otherwise._ She could feel all three men watching her closely as she made her way into the lab.

"Gentlemen," she said coolly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Good to see you, Katniss," Bruce said as he focused his attention back down at his work, not hardly taking the time to warm her up to the situation. She looked back and forth between the other two men in the room, both of whom were trying to avoid all eye contact as subtly as possible, or in Tony's case, just blatantly staring at the ceiling.

"Having fun?" Katniss asked, not particularly interested in the status of their research or whether or not they were having the time of their lives.

"With your star-spangled boyfriend—"

" _—not_ my boyfriend—"

"—interrupting my work, you on the hunt for him, trying to determine Fury's angle, I'm having an absolute  _blast_ ; is this a date or something?" Tony pried, pointing the pen in his hand between the two of them, who were both mutually confused and annoyed with his antics. "You two going off to fire Cupid's love arrows or have hot sex after a sparring match? I mean, what do a super soldier and a purebred assassin do for fun?"

Katniss rolled her eyes, trying not to let Tony's comments physically affect her as much as they had Steve, seeing how his face was the color of a stripe on the American flag. "I actually came for you," she corrected. Tony raised an eyebrow after she said that, prompting her to continue. "And what the hell do you mean by purebred assassin?”

"Oh, nothing. Just an observation," Tony responded nonchalantly, avoiding eye contact with her once more. This was the reason she found herself extremely irritated with everyone on this ship. It was like they all knew something that she didn't, and every time she stepped into the room, she could reach out and feel the awkward. Being the only one left out of the group secrets wasn't the most pleasant feeling; in fact, it angered her even more than now lost and clueless Steve seemed to be in the know more than she was.

"Well, I think your observation time is up," Steve cut in. "You need to be focusing on the problem at hand, Mr. Stark."

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us, why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us; you can't do the equation if you don't have the variables," Tony propelled. Katniss opened her mouth to interject herself into the conversations, most likely to ask what Tony hismself knew about a few things, but Steve once again beat her to the punch.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" The look that said ' _where have you been, dumbass'_  was flashing in Tony's eyes, about as obvious as Steve's uniform or Loki's ridiculous little costume, and Steve shut his mouth quickly after. Her gaze flicking back and forth between the two of them, Katniss spoke up.

"Doesn’t take a genius to see he’s hiding something. More than one something, at that," she muttered bitterly. "His secrets have secrets, and unfortunately for us, he's about as tight lipped as a padlock."

"Which is why I'm doing a little research of my own," Tony explained, swiveling one of the monitors around. It was pretty unfamiliar looking to Katniss, just a bunch of letters and numbers scrolling along on the screen. "JARVIS has been running my little decryption program since I hit the bridge earlier today; I'm not the type who has the patience for ol' Saint Nick to give me what I want." So Tony was hacking into SHIELD.  _Splendid_. A bewildered look being directed his way, Tony's eyes widened at the sight of Katniss before glancing over to Bruce for some sort of support. "What? It's bugging him too."

Bruce was a little stunned that he'd been dragged into the conversation. "Uh…look, I just want to finish my work, and—"

"Doctor?" Steve asked, an eyebrow lifting quizzically on his own face.

Sighing, Bruce dropped his hands to the desk. "Loki's jab to Fury about the cube earlier,  _'a warm light for all mankind to share'_ ; it's being thrown at Tony. Stark Tower being opened and all the news surrounding it, it was everywhere. Barton wouldn't have to look far if he wanted to know a thing or two about it."

"Stark Tower? You mean that big, ugly…" Steve's voice trailed off the edge once he caught the death glare coming from Tony. "Building in New York? What about it? Why does Loki care about some building?" he finished.

"Why does Loki care about half the shit he's done?" Katniss retorted.

"I'm on your side here," Steve said stiffly.

Bruce continued on, sensing the tension between the two and wanting to ward off the anticipated lover's quarrel comment that was more than likely hanging off Tony's lips. "Stark Tower is powered by Stark's reactors. It's a self-sustaining energy source; building will run itself for, what? A year?" he asked, looking over at Tony.

"That's just the prototype," Tony explained, puffing out his chest. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

Bruce nodded. "Makes sense why Loki's making jabs at it, especially since he's having Barton steal from scientists in Germany. But even then, why wouldn't SHIELD bring Tony in on the Tesseract Project to begin with? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Pointing back over to the screen where the hack was still running, Tony clucked his tongue in agreement. "And since dear, dear Fury isn't knocking down my door to explain himself, we're breaking into SHIELD's secure files."

"All of them?" Steve asked incredulously.

"No, just the select few." Tony extended a small bag to the two people in front of him. "Blueberry?" he offered innocently.

"So you're uncovering every dirty secret SHIELD's ever had, or has tried to hide?" Katniss questioned, still a few steps behind on the gist of the situation. Tony nodded.

"And yet you wondered why they didn't want you around?" Steve mumbled.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not possible," Tony rattled off once again, retracting his offer off blueberries to Steve, who was looking pretty displeased.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," he explained. "This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

Katniss snorted. "Orders? Fury uses me like a broom; when there's a mess I'm sent to deal with it and once I'm done, I go back to the storage closet. I’m not a SHIELD agent. He’s only deluding himself if he thinks I’m following any order he gives me."

"I'm with baby bird," Tony said. "And besides, following is not really my style."

"And you're all about style, aren't you?"

Tony stepped closer to Steve, the tension in the room drastically spiking. "Of the people in this room, which one is a) wearing a spangled outfit, and b) not of use?" Tony sneered.

Dropping her hands to her thighs with a loud sound, Katniss shook her head. "Clearly, nothing in here is of use to me, so I’m off to get my own answers,” she snarled. “Shout when Fury comes around to chew out your ass.” Storming out of the room, she paused for a minute and looked down each individual hallway before stalking down the one that she figured would take her to her best chance at finding anything—the storage units on the lower levels.

"Katniss!" she could hear Steve yelling behind her, trying to catch up and grab her attention at the same time. She kept her eyes forwards and didn't turn around, because she knew the minute she did she'd be roped up in some sort of apology and half-assed explanation. She'd already failed multiple times at getting something out of Fury and Tony today and there wasn't much more room for failure in her book. If she had no choice but to get answers on her own, then so be it, and there was no way in hell she was allowing Steve to get in the way of that. He, along with everyone else on the boat clearly knew something himself already, and would be just as stubborn about letting it loose, so there was no real point in trying. "Katniss, will you wait up?"

She felt one of Steve's hands grasp her shoulder, and stopping dead in her tracks, she exhaled loudly. "What do you want?" she uttered out, her teeth clenched together.

"I don’t know what you interpreted that as back there but I’m on your side here, I'm just trying to help you—"

Spinning around sharply on her heel, she shot a glare up Steve's way. "With what? My parents? What drove that desire, pity? Because I know you didn't do it out of anything else. I'm done with the secret keeping; I'm done with Stark's damn nicknames and the silence that follows me every time I step in a fucking room. You're doing no better than Fury and Tony if you know something, you know," she spat.

"You're just as wound up as the rest of us," he observed, and Katniss choked out a bitter chuckle.

"Great observation there, you and Tony are  _just_  alike," she commented dryly, turning back towards the direction she was going and resumed walking off. Steve was hot on her heels, trying to get her to stop and listen.

"Letting Loki get to you—"

"This has  _nothing_ to do with Loki!" Katniss exploded, whirling around. "Loki hasn’t done a damn thing but roam around in that cell; this is about Fury and Stark and you and everyone else on this boat. So if there's anyone getting to me right now, it's the latter of those two."

Steve was silent for a moment, following behind her after she started walking again, taking a turn down a flight of stairs to Level Five. "Where are you going?" he asked, voice softer this time.

"I told you, I'm going to find answers."

Landing at the bottom of the staircase, she could see down one of the hallways. It was completely deserted, very little light shining throughout. She’d learned quickly that the less light, the less people that milled around down her, and if she could make any kind of bets, it meant that there were things down here Fury didn’t want found. That of course, was exactly what Katniss was looking for. Perusing down the hall and reading the doors to find something that looked as though it held potential, nothing looked very promising. She'd reached the end of the hall, the thought that this was merely a bust settling in when she heard Steve's voice. "Katniss? I think you might want to see this."

When she turned around, Steve was standing in front of a door she'd overlooked, one entitled 'Secure Storage Unit 10-C'.  _Secure storage, that sounds promising enough,_ she thought to herself as she started assisting him in searching for a way to open the door. Like almost every door on the Helicarrier, there was no simplicity in getting it open. No handle or anything normal, because god forbid anything on the ship be the least bit normal. There was an electronic scanner, but she knew that the minute one of them put their hands on that thing they'd be denied access and let everyone on the Helicarrier know that they were snooping around. Kneeling down to see if there was any way that they could wedge something between the cracks and pry the door open, she didn't realize Steve had even been making a plan of his own until he told her to move over, gesturing her out of the way. She stood up, watching him as he grabbed the side of the door with the edges of his fingers and slowly but surely pushed the door over. No doubt it was resisting, being made solely of metal and electronically controlled, and he continued to work at it for a few minutes.

Having finally gotten a small gap in between the door and its frame, Steve gestured for Katniss to go on in with the slight nod of his head. He held the door for her as she swiftly slid through the gap. "Look and see if there's any way you can open it from the inside," Steve grunted. Nodding, Katniss began to look in the dark for some sort of control panel. There was a small button on the wall next to the doorframe, and she sent up a quick thought into the universe that it wasn’t an alarm that notified the whole world they were opening this door before pushing it. The door opened up the rest of the way, Steve quickly slipping in before she pushed the button once more to close it.

"What are you looking for in here, anyways?" she hissed.

Steve shrugged. "Computers work too slowly for me."

While there were plenty of trunks and file cabinets around them, they didn't have to walk far or try too hard before reaching a dead end. All of the things Katniss had attempted to break into had heavy security or didn't even open at all. Whoever’d come up with the decoy idea smart, she’d give them that much. "Now what?" Steve finally asked, his voice echoing in the emptiness of the room. Looking around them, Katniss spotted a few bars by the ceiling, resembling something that looked like a walkway that signaled there was probably an upper level to the unit. _Jackpot._

"Give me a boost?" she asked as she pointed to it, looking over her shoulder to see Steve's brief nod. He laced both hands together and lowered them slightly, backing up against one of the trunks. Katniss counted silently to three in her head before placing one of her feet in his little cradle, his arms shooting her up in the air hardly a moment later. Grabbing the highest bar, she allowed the momentum to swing her body over in a nice flip, the sound of her feet meeting the metal walkway with a clank. Quickly looking both ways down the corridor, she then called out quietly to Steve, "Coast’s clear!"

No sooner had the words left her mouth, she saw Steve's hands clenched around the lower bar, pulling himself up on the edge and swinging his legs over the railing. "And what, pray tell, would you have done if it wasn't?" he asked. Katniss rolled her eyes.

"Go along as I went, of course; I’m smarter than you take me for," she replied before making her way down the corridor. There was another break in between the hallway and the other floor of the storage unit and no staircase in sight. Grabbing onto the railing, she swung both legs up and placed either foot on the railing. Jumping slightly, her hands wrapped around the other bar near the floor of the next floor and she pulled herself up, sliding through the small gap in the floor. Steve however, boosted himself up and swung himself over, landing on both feet.

There were rows and rows of trunks that never seemed to end, and Katniss knew it would take them forever to go through all of these things. "I’ll take this end," she said, pointing to her left. "And you take the other. We meet in the middle; if we find anything tell the other?"

"Sounds like a plan," Steve nodded before leaving Katniss standing alone. She began to walk slowly along a row of trunks, her fingers brushing slightly over the lettering. Truth be told, she had no real care towards the trunks or their contents. What she wanted was a file cabinet or a computer, something that she knew what she was looking for would have stored inside it. She got her wish a few moments later, but not in the form of either of those.

There was a small table, something that looked a lot like a desk—why anyone would work in here, much less do so voluntarily, Katniss had no earthly clue. Nothing was on the table except for a file, and merely out of her own curiosity, she picked it up. The file in one hand and the other reaching for the portable flashlight strapped to the utility belt that came with the clothes they’d given her upon arrival, she clicked it on before scanning over the top:

**_NATASHA ROMANOFF_ **

Her eyebrows furrowing together, Katniss put the flashlight in between her teeth as she opened the file and laid it out before her on the small table. One hand gripped tightly around the base of the flashlight and the other resting on the edge of the table, she began to ruffle through the contents. There was a picture of Natasha paper-clipped to the side, the glare from her green eyes intense enough to make Katniss feel as though she was looking directly through her. Her red hair was just as wild as her eyes, and her face resting expressionless for the photo. Moving away from the picture, Katniss started to go through all of the paperwork inside.

It was a lot; there were mission reports, interrogation transcripts, satellite pictures, all sorts of things, but nothing that told her anything. Her hope on finding something valid was dwindling quickly as her fingers brushed over what seemed to be a recent report, judging by the date on the paper. It was a whole lot of government spy lingo, most of which confused the hell out of her, but there were a few things she was able to take from it: mission gone wrong, killed in action.

Sighing as she put the slip of paper back in place, she flipped back to the front. There was a sheet that she had yet to see, stapled onto the file with a ton of information written on the page. Scanning over everything, Katniss could slowly feel the breath being squeezed out of her.

_CODENAME: Black Widow._

_:// BRIEFED AS . . . Red Room trained individual, former assassin. Considered highly lethal, skilled in combat. Widows Bites and gun taken upon arrival. Defected from Russia, brought in by Clint Barton, retrained as SHIELD agent._

_PART OF STRIKE TEAM DELTA. No extraction plan set. See Hawkeye file._

_ESPIONAGE EFFORTS UNDER SHIELD . . . Assigned Tony Stark Avengers Initiative evaluation. Assignment completed. Results in file #4452._

_:// ENHANCED INDIVIDUAL . . . Red Room's sterilization component of Black Widow program failed, Romanoff pregnant by 1994. Taken off STRIKE TEAM DELTA duties in 1995. Gave birth to daughter May 8th, 1995. Father's name not disclosed at Romanoff’s request. Child hand-delivered by SHIELD to Safe House #2127 two days following birth at Romanoff’s request. **Has been drafted for Avengers Initiative (edit. 2012)**_

The blood was rushing in Katniss' ears, hard to hear anything over the sound of her heart pounding. Her head was spinning as she gripped to the desk for some support in case her knees gave out on her. The letters on the page swam around, jumbling together along with the angry tears forming in her eyes as the realization settled in her stomach like a block of lead. She had been born on May 8th; that was always the day they celebrated her birthday at home. Twelve, in all its isolation, was still safe – nothing bad ever came through, ever touched them. Tony humming the Itsy Bitsy Spider, it was  _Tony_  who had almost let her name slip that day with Steve; for god's sake, Natasha had worked with Tony once, it all made sense. All of it  _fit_. This was what Fury had been hiding all along, why he’d refused to talk to her. This was the truth she'd been desperate to get her hands on, sitting there in front of her. Natasha, who was killed in action; Natasha, the one who wasn't able to get pregnant and had anyways—it was her. Natasha Romanoff was her mother. Looking at the picture of Natasha one more time, she could help but to point out the similarities in her mother's face and her own. The lips, the nose, features Katniss had inherited. She felt a tear slide down her cheek before slamming the file shut angrily.

Clicking her flashlight off and jamming it back into the utility belt, she grabbed the file off the table. The thought of yelling for Steve crossed her mind only briefly, but she was too consumed in her infuriation to form any sort of words, to even think of inviting anyone else to witness her slowly breaking down. What she needed was to get out of that storage unit; she could feel the walls closing in on her as her heart rate sped up, face growing hot.  _But where the hell am I going to go?_ And then it clicked.

There was only one person left to talk to.


	9. questions better left unanswered

**_LOCATION: STARK TOWER_ **

_"Phil, come in!" Pepper Potts' voice rang out as she stood up to go and greet the already straight-faced agent that was standing in the elevator._

_"Phil?" Tony questioned as Pepper carried on, the smile on her face wide as can be._

_"I can't stay," Coulson said stiffly. Tony rose, following right on Pepper’s heels. This was_ their _night together, celebrating Stark Tower's entrance into a self-sustaining, clean energy source thanks to the arc reactor. And now, here was Agent Coulson, showing up just on time to ruin, well, everything._

_"Uh, his first name is agent!" he called after her, trying to catch up with Pepper's pace._

_"Come on in," Pepper continued with her invitation, Tony wincing. "We're celebrating."_

_Pasting a fake smile on, Tony finally was face to face with Coulson. "Which is why he can't stay."_

_Extending a file towards Tony, Coulson began. "We need you to look this over, soon as possible."_

_"I don't like being handed things—"_

_"That's fine, because I love to be handed things. Let's trade." Pepper exchanged her glass of champagne for what Coulson was handing, before turning to Tony and grabbing his glass as she stuck him with the file, leaving Tony with a file in his hands and a none too thrilled expression plastered on his face. "Thank you," she chimed, giving Tony a look._

_Clearing his throat and pushing his shoulders back, Tony then addressed Phil. "Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday."_

_"This isn't a consultation."_

_Pepper, who had been rather silent throughout the exchange, watched as Tony made his way back over to the desk in the far corner of the room before facing Phil once more. "Is this about the Avengers?" she asked, before quickly correcting herself. "Which, I-I know nothing about."_

_"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify," Tony muttered._

_"I didn't know that either."_

_"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others," he rattled off, his tone bitter as he thought back to the evaluation Agent Romanoff had done on him when he hadn’t been looking._

_Pepper nodded. "That I_ did  _know."_

_"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," Phil protested, starting his walk over to where the billionaire was actively trying to avoid him, opening the file._

_"Whatever," Tony grumbled, rolling his eyes._

_"Surely you remember Natasha." That name was familiar, and Tony's head snapped up from the file at the sound of it._

_"The redheaded assassin who went undercover as my assistant's assistant, did that evaluation on me as I was dying and can kick my ass into next Thursday? How do you forget someone like that, agent, because really, I'd love to know the secret."_

_Producing a flash drive from his coat pocket, Phil extended it out to a wary Tony, who took it hesitantly. "This is something I trust you with, Stark, something that if Fury found out I was doing, I'd get fired. Or killed."_

_Tony wiggled his eyebrows, smirking. "Playing dirty, are we Agent Coulson?"_

_Pepper, who had joined them over by the desk, retrieved the drive from Tony's hands. "And what is this, Phil?" she asked._

_"I take it you're aware of Natasha's…predicament," Phil began. Tony cut him off with the dismissive wave of his hands._

_"Mother Russia had a little baby Russia, yes, I very well remember that whole debacle. Need I remind you that she almost broke my nose when I oh-so-accidentally found out?" Tony spat bitterly. The whole event had been rather traumatizing in his experience; one very angry Natasha Romanoff was not a pleasant thing to have to deal with, and angry assassins plus an innocent Tony Stark never seemed to mix well in the first place. He continued, keeping his eyes trained on the first file Phil had given him. "Shipped the baby off to the Middle of Nowhere, USA, never saw it again. Then she disappeared, marked KIA, and if he'd had a religion, Barton would have lost it."_

_"Barton's going to lose his mind after he sees what you've done now," Pepper mused quietly from behind the two men, sitting on the couch with her laptop and already looking at the flash drive's components. Both men swiveling around to see what she was looking at, Pepper turned the laptop around, where a picture of a brunette in the woods aiming a bow and arrow at Fury was blown up to the size of the screen. Tony let out a low whistle._

_"You and Fury are in such big trou-ble," Tony sang under his breath, to which both Phil and Pepper shot him looks for. "What? You know that the two of them made you swear that you'd keep the kid out of this…traveling circus act. That's why Natasha wanted her as far away as possible, why she shipped her off to a safe house. And if she finds out if you broke that promise—"_

_"She's not alive to know," Phil insisted._

_"Well, in case her ghost comes back to haunt you for it, I'm not getting involved, since she'll probably still be able to kick my ass even in the afterlife. And there's also Barton, who, last time I checked, was very much_ alive _."_

_"He's been compromised," Pepper piped up, her eyes still trained on the screen. "Some guy called Loki took him?"_

_"It's…a story for later," Phil explained. "The problem here is that we don't have Natasha and we don't have Clint. Fury's insisting we round up the troops—"_

_Tony stared at Phil, his jaw agape. "Oh my god," he said. "Has Fury recruited her?" His thoughts were confirmed when Phil's gaze averted quickly to the floor, looking slightly embarrassed. Tony let his hand drop to his side, hitting the side of his leg as it fell. "Well that's it. Fury's a dead man. He's dead. Did you come to make funeral arrangements, because I know a guy who can—"_

_"Mr. Stark," Phil interrupted, his voice stern. "I'm not here to condone Director Fury's actions. I'm here because I need for you to do me something."_

_"Yeah, and what part of ‘_ I am not getting in the direct line of this’ _doesn't sink in? Barton's a world-renowned marksman, I'm not looking to have an arrow sticking out of one of my eye sockets,” Tony refused._

_"I'm not asking you to get into the direct line of anything. Fury thinks I'm here recruiting you to help find the Tesseract, but I'm here to ask you to keep Natasha's promise."_

_"Well, as you can see by the pictures Miss Potts is currently perusing through, you already kind of broke it," Tony gestured towards Pepper and her laptop, where she was still flipping through the flash drive's contents._

_"Natasha wanted us to keep her safe, and that's what I'm asking you to do. Do I think Director Fury will stick her in the line of fire? No, but he knew better when it came to recruiting the girl, so there's no telling what he's got up his sleeve. We're doing everything that we can right now to find Barton, but in the meantime, we need to keep the girl safe."_

_"She was safe back wherever the hell you shipped her off after she was born."_

_Phil sighed. "You don’t think we know this? We can't send her back now; Fury's told her enough to make her want to stay and she's already proven herself to be her mother's child. She's not going to walk away from this even if Fury gives her the out, and we have to do our best to keep Natasha's promise, even it’s just from there on the ship. We owe it to her to at least try and let her rest in peace."_

_"So you need me to come on board and babysit the little assassin?"_

_"I need you to watch out for her. Again, if she's her mother's child, trouble will come knocking before she can go looking."_

_"And when Barton comes back and realizes what the hell you've done?" It was quiet for a moment, Phil not needing to respond since the answer of what he’d do was blatantly obvious to the both of them. They stared at Pepper in silence, watching quietly as she flipped through the photos projected there above them. Tony crossed his arms over his chest, opening his mouth again. "What's her name?"_

_"Katniss."_

* * *

Slipping quietly into the room of her set destination, Katniss rolled up the file and stuffed it in the back of her utility belt. She wasn't about to carry on a conversation about this, not here and most certainly not now, and she didn’t need to wave around the very catalyst for it. On her way up from 10-C, she'd tried desperately to hide the fact that she had been crying, but it proved a little complicated when she couldn't seem to stifle the flow of her tears. She'd found out who her mother was. Her  _real_  mother, not the mother who she'd had her whole life back in Twelve, not the mother who fell into a deep depression after her father died, not the mother who all but gave up on her. She had every reason to validate her tears, every reason to want to cry and nothing holding her back, except the fact that she couldn't walk in wearing weakness like it was a tattoo. She had to slap on her poker face and pray it held up.

Quietly, she tiptoed to the front of the glass chamber, folding her arms as she stood there, just waiting. His back was to her as he paced, and all of a sudden he stopped in his tracks, head lifting ever so slightly. "You know, there's not many people that can sneak up on me," Loki said, turning around slowly.

"Do I win a prize for that?" Katniss replied.

Loki simply grinned. "After whatever tortures Fury could concoct, he’d hoped you would appear as a friend."

"I'm not here on Fury's behalf," she cut in coolly. "I'm here for me."

"Do tell," Loki insisted.

Glancing at her surroundings before bringing her eyes back to Loki, she shrugged. "I figured it was time we chat. About…different things." The god in front of her cocked an eyebrow, and she carried on. "Gale," Katniss said, her voice clipped. "I want to know what it is that you've done to him."

Loki lifted his hands, moving his shoulders in a small shrug. "Well, I'd say I've simply expanded his mind," he responded.

Katniss' eyes narrowed into slits. "Expanded his mind? Are you talking about the possession…thing? How did you even know how to target him in the first place; you didn’t even know I existed, that I was connected to this, that SHIELD even had me on their radar to start. Why go snapping up people who aren’t involved?”

"In order to win a war, Miss Everdeen," Loki said, the sound of someone saying her last name now so foreign to her that she hardly even knew he was addressing her. "One must be aware of every possibility."

"Not an answer," she snapped.

Loki's hands lifted slightly, a sign of showing innocence. "I knew that you would be recruited by SHIELD eventually—one of my men informed me; my only hope of finding a way to you was through your friend, Gale." The beginnings of a smirk appeared on his lips. "Is this love, Miss Everdeen?" he asked.

"Love? It’s never been about love, I owe him my life. "

Sitting down on the bench in the farthest corner of his little cage, Loki gestured for her to continue. "Tell me." Katniss mirrored his actions, seating herself in the chair closest to the glass that the guard keeping watch had used previously.

She let out a small sigh, leaning forward. “Growing up, our fathers worked together. They died in an explosion when I was still pretty young, and my mother didn’t take it well. Left me to my own devices, I guess. I was starving away because she wasn’t feeding me and we had no other way to get our hands on food after my dad died. Gale was the one who taught me how to hunt, how to use the woods as a resource. He was the only one who got it, who understood. We helped one another survive,” she explained, muttering the last little bit very quietly.

"And I don't think you realized then that those weren’t your real parents." Loki nodded in her direction. "That's where you were before visiting me, finding out things for yourself." Katniss could feel the heat rise in her face as he continued talking, the file beginning to feel like a knife pressing farther into her back. He let out a small laugh. “You aren’t well with hiding your secrets, and after all, we’re more alike than you think.

"Gale told me everything," he continued. "How you're impatient, stubborn, hot headed; how your temper gets the better of you sometimes and you allow it. You're not very complicated to figure out, Miss Everdeen. Your anger and rage over the years of hearing people discuss and pry into your life, being abandoned by your mother after the death of your father, being lied to; it's been bottled up inside of you, festering. Now it's coming to the surface, and you're about to explode. This ship is the lighter, and you are the fuse."

"You don't know a damn thing about—"

"What?" Loki cut in, Katniss' teeth set on edge as she ground them together in hopes that they wouldn't break under the intense amounts of pressure she was applying. "You? You don't think that I don't know of your quandary? Your superiors have me in a cage, Miss Everdeen, not on another world. I know you're struggling to fit in here, like you have everywhere else, that you’re desperately searching for answers in the hopes they may bring a change your way. And that's why you've come to me. You want the one thing that has always remained back with you, your constant."

Katniss stiffened in her seat. "You're right, I do want Gale back. I also want to know what  _you_ know about my parents," she said. "I know you know something. Everyone on this damn boat does, except for me."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she kept her eyes trained on Loki. "And if I comply with your…requests? Vow to spare Hawthorne, agree to tell you what you so desperately wish to know?" he asked.

"Not let you out—"

Loki grinned. "Ah, no, but I  _like_ this," he chuckled darkly. "Your world hangs in the balance, and you bargain for one man and a scrap of news; news that will destroy you just as much as finding out whom your mother was?" Katniss leaned back slightly in her chair, Loki's grin growing wilder by the second. "Your eyes are rimmed red, you sit so uncomfortably; the vulnerability  _leaks_ off you, Everdeen. I may not be of your world, but I know of your inner workings, the signs of when you've uncovered a truth. You know who she is, and I must say you did a pitiful job of hiding the proof behind your back."

Standing up slowly and embarrassingly readjusting the poking out file back into her utility belt, Katniss squared her shoulders. "And if I do?"

"Well, I hardly see a reason to bargain."

"You still have something I want. Gale."

Loki rose from the bench, striding over to the glass at a slow pace, meant to lure her in for his strike. "I've seen his mind, I know of the things that he wants from you, and they're not of the things you think," he sneered. Katniss shook her head.

"If you think you're manipulating me into believing something else, you're not succeeding. I know that Gale and I are just—"

"Friends? Oh, Miss Everdeen, this is pathetic.  _You_  are pathetic. You've seen the way he's looked at you your whole life, you just elect to ignore it. He sees you as so much more than just his right hand; he sees you as his counterpart, the only one he could ever imagine being with. The only person in this world who fully trusts you, and in return, holds all of yours, even if he’s been so dishonest about who you are to him. And what am I to do with something so sweet as the child at prayer, your  _basest_  sentimentality of wanting a man back who means nothing more to you than I do? What to do with the wolf among sheep, the one who wears the uniform but takes no orders from any man, who thinks herself separate from the monsters around her when they have latched onto her and will never leave her?" Loki slammed his fist against the wall of the cage, startling Katniss. "You eliminate the one of the least amount of use; drop them so you can deal with the real threats at hand. And that's what I intend to do. Only after I make him kill you in every way he's capable of, ways you're sure to fear, to which I'll wake him long enough to see his good work, and once the scream rips from him, I'll split his skull! That is my  _bargain_ , you mewling quim."

Katniss stepped closer to the glass, her eye contact with Loki never breaking. "Under your influence or not, Gale won’t kill me."

Loki scoffed, his lip curling upwards in a smirk. "You truly believe I mean to have Hawthorne kill you? Oh no," he jeered. "Hawthorne won't have that pleasure. I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to."

"You're a monster.”

" _You're_ the one who’s friends with the monster," Loki sneered.

Raising an eyebrow, Katniss stepped back from the glass cell. "Bruce.  _That's_  where you’re going with this."

Loki straightened out, his fist relaxing out into just his palm pressed up on the wall. "What?"

"You want the Hulk unleashed. That's what all your little mind games are about; we're a powder keg and you hope when one of us explodes, we hit Banner."

"I don't—"

Walking away from the cell, she tapped into her comm unit, interrupting Loki. "Coulson, this is Everdeen; I'll be down at Banner's lab in five, send Fury and Thor. Keep Bruce and Tony there, we’ve all got quite a bit to discuss,” she said, before turning back to face a puzzled Loki. "And thank you, for your consideration." She then turned on her heel, and started off to Banner's lab, leaving Loki behind the glass completely unaware of what sort of spark he'd just ignited.


	10. hell hath no fury like nick fury

Stalking through the halls of the Helicarrier, Katniss was seeing red. She wasn't quite sure what she was angrier over anymore; Loki's mind games during her impromptu interrogation or all of the things that were related to her discovery of who her mother was. Loki's taunts resonated in her mind as she stormed past people, all but pushing them out of her way.  _Hawthorne won't have that pleasure; I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to. This is pathetic,_ you're  _pathetic. The vulnerability leaks off of you. This ship is the lighter, and you are the fuse._

Guess that meant the whole damn thing was about to go down in flames.

Rounding a corner, she almost collided with Thor, who lighted up at the sight of her. "Lady Everdeen," he greeted. "Our presence has been requested in the Doctor's laboratory." Katniss had to fight the urge to roll her eyes;  _I was the one who called you, moron._

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Come on Shakespeare," she said, hardly waiting any time before resuming her prowl to the lab. "I really don't have the time to waste."

Thor followed alongside her quietly, reminding her vaguely of a Labrador. He was nothing like his brother—he certainly knew when to shut up unlike Loki, but his brother was his biggest weakness. It didn't take too much for Katniss to figure that one out. The way that he protected him in any kind of conversation that was mostly targeting Loki in a negative way, the way that he was always trying to bring out the person he knew Loki to be whenever he was near; it was something that she'd picked up on almost instantly. Thor's weakness would always be his loyalty, especially to Loki, and it would be his downfall, essentially. She'd all but forgotten he was tagging along beside her until he decided to speak up again. "Fair maiden, is there something troubling you?" he asked politely.

"Nope, everything's just fine," Katniss said through her gritted teeth. Obviously, that was a lie, but what Thor didn't know definitely wouldn't kill him. As she rounded a corner, Bruce's lab came into view; Fury, Bruce, Tony and Steve all standing there. It didn't seem like too friendly of a conversation. Something was sitting down on the lab table—Katniss assumed it had been Steve's findings up in 10-C, and she briefly wondered how pissed he was at her for ditching him up there. The thought dissipated the second her eyes locked on Tony. Tony, who had known everything, Tony who had literally rubbed her mother right in her face and did it all with a smile. And then there was Fury, who knew and actively avoided telling her, for what, the sake of the greater good? She could taste the metal in her mouth as she felt her hands instinctively move to the back of her utility belt, where Natasha's file was protruding.

Like a whirlwind, Katniss stormed into the laboratory, Tony's face lighting up. "Oh look, it's the baby bird!" he exclaimed cheerfully. Not even bothering to acknowledge his comment, she took the file out from behind her and threw it down on the table next to whatever Steve had come across. Tony's face instantly paled, and Fury looked as though he had dry swallowed cement.

"So, who wants to explain what the fuck _this_ is?” she started, glancing around the room. Every eye was on her; Tony pretty terrified, Steve was startled, Fury stood there like a statue and showed no kind of emotion, Bruce looked almost sad for her, and Thor was just confused as he always was. "Well?"

"You were not supposed to go looking, I thought I'd made that very clear," Fury said, his voice dangerously low. "Those were orders."

"Baby bird doesn’t follow orders?"

"I am not your agent," Katniss snapped, her hand colliding on top of the file again for emphasis. "Now does anyone want to to tell me what this is about?!"

"Miss Everdeen—" Fury started, but Katniss cut him off.

"I don’t know why you waste your time calling me by that name, since we both know that’s not what it is. Why not just go ahead and start calling me Miss Romanoff?” Katniss got treacherously close to Fury, her eyes wild. "Or _maybe_ I should just go by my father's last name; you want to tell me that?"

"Whoa," Tony's unusually serious voice cutting in; holding his hands out as he finally opened his mouth, stepping forward. "You mean to tell me she has  _no_  clue—"

"We are not doing this right now, Mr. Stark," Fury replied.

"No, Fury, we’re doing this _right_ now!” Katniss shouted. Spinning around to face Tony, her eyes narrowed into slits as she began prowling towards him. "You, you knew about this the whole time; and you never said a word to me? God,  _please_  don't tell me the reason is because you're my father."

"Of course I'm not your dad, but I thought you knew! She really has no idea?" Tony asked Fury, completely disregarding the livid teenager in front of him. "You mean to tell me you've kept this secret from the girl ever since she stepped on the bridge? I thought you would have at least had the dignity to tell her then, knowing the girl’s been in the dark on everything about her life! I mean, that's why I thought Capsicle was coming to me, asking all these questions about taking action and getting him-"

"Mr. Stark!"

"I never said that she didn't know," Steve interrupted Fury's threats and Tony's verbal method of ironing out his thoughts, glancing over at her apologetically. She, however, didn't even bother to look in Steve's direction.

"Well you sure as hell fooled me!"

"Can we get back to the issue here?" Bruce finally said, turning around a monitor that showed a graphic of something that resembled a missile. Katniss couldn't really think of anything else it could be. He must have seen her staring at it rather closely, because he then addressed her. "Did you know anything about this?"

"Why would I know anything about…whatever that is?" she fired back.

"Well, seeing as how you’re the only one on this case that’s walking around in the name of SHIELD, I automatically assume you know they’re planning to use the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction!"

Katniss stepped closer to him, a rather vain attempt to get him in check. "You’re being manipulated, Bruce; Loki wants us all to piss you off and force you into an episode. Wanna step out for a breather?” she asked, her voice low and eyes scanning over his face.

"You haven't had any issues with me and the other guy before, why are you all of a sudden getting twitchy?" Bruce countered, lifting an eyebrow.

"Twitchy, no, precautionary, maybe." Katniss felt a pair of hands grab her shoulders, trying to pull her back from her little standoff with Bruce.

"Katniss, just let—"

"You let go of me!" she snapped, whipping around to face Steve. "So, you research my situation after I tell you about it, and then you decide, like everyone else, to keep it from me? What kind of fucking plan is that?”

"A plan where you don't get hurt!"

"Well, excuse me when I say that it's a shitty excuse of a plan!"

"I don't understand why you're being so childish over all of this!" Steve yelled back, and Katniss fell silent. She'd never heard anything like that come out of Steve's mouth before, and she hadn't expected it to. Steve was probably one of the only people she could even expect to understand why she was acting the way she was, the only one she’d apparently trusted enough to talk to, and now here he was, throwing it back in her face and calling her a child. Falling back slightly, she gave him a dirty look before turning her back to him.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor commented, his interjection into the conversation the work of impeccable timing.

Fury's head twisted in the demigod's direction, shooting him quite the glare. "Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"What?"

Fury sighed as the room around him fell silent. "Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, and hilariously out gunned."

Thor's face scrunched up in confusion. "My people want nothing but peace with your planet," he explained.

"Yeah, but you're not the only people out there are you?" Fury barked. "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

"That doesn't give you control over them," Katniss spat bitterly.

"What, like you controlled the cube?" Steve said.

Katniss hadn't seen Thor very angry at all, but everyone was already dancing on pins and needles as it was, it didn’t come as a surprise that he was perturbed as well. "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki and his allies to it," Thor growled. "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A  _higher_  form?" Steve asked again.

"You forced our hand; we had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony stepped in, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, ‘cause that always calms everything  _right_  down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"

"And how do you make yours, Fury?" Katniss interrupted, crossing her arms.

Fury scowled, clearly unhappy with her. "No one asked you to go looking around for answers, Miss Everdeen, you could have waited—"

"Until you did what, Nick, told her? Because you clearly weren't planning on that!" Tony yelled.

"And you were?" Steve's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, focusing his attention on Tony.

"Since when is this about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

Everything swarmed into chaos after that. Steve and Tony were butting heads over something that had more than likely evolved into them throwing mindless insults at one another. Bruce and Thor—two very unlikely people whom Katniss assumed had only said about three words to each other, if they'd even met at all—were arguing over the Tesseract and SHIELD's control over it, and they were probably on the same side, but it sure as hell didn't sound like it. And then there was Fury and Katniss, Katniss berating him with every colorful word that she'd ever known.

"You’re rich, you know that? I mean, dangling what I want over my head and making me jump for it in the very way that’s going to benefit you; really, truly clever. But when I finally come to my senses that’s what you’re doing and confront you on it, you just…what? Keep it up? Pray I forget? Doesn’t work like that, Fury, some of us aren’t so easy to roll over on our backs and ignore when we’re getting played. You’re as much of a monster as Loki is."

"Miss Everdeen—"

"Do _not_ call me by that name,” Katniss spat. “Does it physically pain you to be honest with someone?”

"What else does she not know, Nick?" Tony stepped in, ignoring his conversation with Steve altogether. "Does she know why she's really here? Does she know about me, about anything at all? Or are you just using her to further your own agenda?"

"Mr. Stark, you are not making this situation any better—"

"—and you're not a threat?" Katniss could hear Bruce say to Steve, who had apparently picked up where Tony had left off. She quickly glanced back and forth between Fury and Tony, before locking in on Tony.

"What is there to know about you, Stark; that you're no better than Cyclops over here?" Katniss' thumb jabbed in the direction of Fury, her eyes slits as she rounded on Tony. She was past the point of formalities, holding her inner commentary inside her head. She was angry, repressing her thoughts was no longer a priority.

"Are you gonna tell her?" Tony said, looking past the fuming girl in front of him and at Fury. "Because if you don't, _right_ now, I'm telling her. Three seconds."

"Tony—"

"One."

Thor's voice caught Katniss' attention in the midst of Tony and Fury's standoff. "You people are so petty, and tiny," he chuckled.

" _Two."_

"I'm not—"

"Romanoff left  _me_  in charge of the child!" Tony revealed, his voice increasing in volume. Katniss stared at him, horrified. "Me! Not you, me. When she came to work for me and after the two of you ambushed me with her agent status, I did some  _real_  research on her and accidentally found out that she'd had a kid. She almost murdered me for it, but agreed to spare my life if I promised her that I would be the one to look after her if something happened to her. She knew that one day, it would all come down to something and the kid would find trouble—or you'd bring it knocking—and Romanoff wanted my word that I would take care of her if the day came that she couldn't. Safety-wise, financially, the whole nine yards."

"So that means—"

Katniss' dismayed, foreign-sounding voice was drowned out by Tony exploding on Fury yet again. "Natasha named me her godfather; why the hell, I'm still trying to figure that out. And the minute I knew you had recruited her—"

"Wait, how did you even know she'd been recruited?" Fury interrupted.

"Sending Coulson to recruit me on the Tesseract goose-chase?" Tony chuckled darkly. "Coulson knew all about my little secret too; brought me every last thing you ever  _had_  on Katniss when he came to give me the stuff you sent with him. I think you'll find that unlike yourself, Coulson, has values and a heart and quite frankly, doesn't have a goddamn death wish."

"So you're not even here for this…shit storm," Katniss managed to utter. "You're here because of me."

"God, I could care less about Fury and his nuclear parties. I'm doing this because I made a promise to someone and I'm not about to break it, something Fury clearly doesn’t understand. Especially not when the someone I promised knows about seventy ways to kill me with her pinky."

"Natasha is dead!" Fury yelled. Tony was quick to respond, his voice at the same volume level as Fury's, if not louder.

"That doesn't change  _anything!"_ he roared.

Thor, who Katniss had guessed was idly watching the fight lay out in front of him, finally stepped in, addressing Fury. "You speak of control? All you court chaos!"

Bruce shrugged, a bitter laugh escaping him. "It's his M.O., isn't it?" he said, turning to face everyone else. "I mean, what are we, a team? No…no, _no_. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're...we're a time-bomb."

Fury slowly started approaching Banner, hand hovering over his gun holster. "You need to step away."

"Why shouldn't they guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked playfully, to which earned him a hit in the shoulder from Steve.

"You know damn well why! Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor," Steve sneered. "Take that off, what are you?"

Tony pretended to ponder that thought. "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," he said.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you," Steve replied, his voice hardening.

"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony reasoned.

"Always a way out." Shaking his head, Steve continued. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"This is fucking ridiculous," Katniss muttered, her voice sounding particularly defeated as she gripped the edge of the lab table, throwing one of her hands in the air. "We’re all lying to one another, we’re all being lied to, why are any of us even here if this is all it’s going to amount to?"

"You're really going to check out, just like that?" Steve retorted. Katniss whipped around to face him, flames dancing in her eyes as her lip curled upwards in an animalistic snarl.

"I thought you would agree that this wasn't the exact environment for a  _child—"_

"Do you ever let _anything_ go?"

"Miss Everdeen, take Dr. Banner with you on your way out," Fury said coolly.

"Where?" Bruce cut in. "You rented my room."

"The cell was just—"

Fury was cut off yet again by Bruce, who was visibly beginning to grow angrier by the minute. "In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know, I tried." Everyone had fallen silent, eyes locked on the doctor. Katniss was having trouble believing her ears; a suicide attempt? Had everything really piled that heavily onto his shoulders, leaving him with that as his only option? She looked at him, the confusion among many other emotions reflecting there in her eyes. His little outburst had faded as he started talking again, his voice low. "I got low, I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out," he said, the edge building up again in his tone. "So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk."

Bruce then turned to face Katniss, his teeth visibly clenched together. "You wanna know the secret, Katniss? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Katniss watched Fury's slow travel towards Bruce, reaching for the gun in the holster strapped to his thigh, her eyes flitting back over to Bruce. "Dr. Banner," Steve stated. "Put down the scepter."

Bruce looked down to the scepter in his hands before glancing back up at the group of people around him. Trying to figure out what he was about to do next, as well as counting her own breathing, Katniss was cut short at about twelve to the persistent beeping sound over in the far corner. Right, they had been tracking the Tesseract last time she'd walked off—she still assumed as such, she didn’t know it was possible to continue that as they hacked into SHIELD. "Sorry, kids," Bruce said, dropping the scepter back down on the table as he ambled over to the monitor on the other side of the room. "You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

Always the one to subtly brag about himself in any possible situation, Tony piped up. "I can get there faster."

Steve shook his head. "Look, all of us—"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor continued, obviously not aware of the fact no one was listening to him.

Steve, however, was busy trying to pull Tony back from leaving and talk some sense into him. "You're not going alone!" he shouted, to which Tony spun back around at the sound of.

"You gonna stop me?" he asked.

"Put on the suit, let's find out."

"Give it a fucking rest already, you two," Katniss hissed over her shoulder as she followed after Bruce to see what had appeared on their tracking map. That, and she knew every second she spent within close proximity to Fury, the closer she was to slapping the eye patch right off that man.

Tony scoffed, disregarding Katniss' comment entirely. "I'm not afraid to hit an old man." Steve wasn't playing either, as his voice was just as serious as Tony's had been.

"Put on the suit."

Leaning over slightly to get a glimpse at the monitor Bruce was currently standing in front of, Katniss saw a little flashing dot hovering in the sky next to a small red box reading '99%'. "Bruce?" she asked tentatively, not sure if he was pissed with her or what. Her finger then brushed over the screen, pointing to the blinking circle on the map. "Bruce, what does that mean?"

Lowering his glasses, Bruce just stared at the screen in disbelief. "Bruce?"

"Oh my god," Bruce breathed, evidently stunned by what he'd seen. It wasn't a good enough answer for Katniss.

"Bruce,  _what_  does it—" Katniss was cut off mid yell as the sound of the explosion drowned her voice out completely and sent the floor blasting out from underneath her.


	11. below the surface

The sound of glass—probably the lab window—shattering was just barely identifiable over the deafening explosion that came rushing throughout the lab, causing the floor to cave in and sending Katniss and Bruce to the ground several feet below. Her body colliding with the ground with a loud smack, the wind was knocked out of her as she struggled around on the ground, finding that she was pinned in place. One of the utility poles had fallen on her leg, it seemed, and it was a hell of a lot heavier than her. There was no telling how she'd get it off of her. Resting her head on the ground as she tried to inch forward, a frustrated whine pushed past her lips, giving up. She had no idea if her leg or anything else was broken—she couldn't half feel it, much less determine if it was still in one piece, and her head was spinning. Her ears were ringing as she moved the upper half of her body around, looking at Bruce. He wasn't stuck underneath anything like her, but he certainly didn't look like he was in good shape.

If she knew two things for sure, there in her trapped state, it was that Loki had to be behind whatever the hell was going on, and that things might have been bad to start, but they were now getting increasingly worse.

"Bruce?" she groaned, gripping onto the floor as the room started spinning. Katniss squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get a hold on the situation.  _Okay, think Katniss. You're not claustrophobic, you're just panicking. If Gale were here, he'd tell you to start counting your breaths. One. Look around and assess the situation. **Well, the lower half of my body is currently trapped under a utility pole and Bruce is…not looking too promising over there.** Two. Can I move the lower half of my body?  **Not really.**  Three. Oh god, what _is  _Bruce doing?_ Wiggling around a little more underneath the pole and trying to pull her leg out from underneath it, she looked back over at Bruce. "Bruce, are you okay?"

That's when it hit her. He was physically trying to hold back the transformation.  _Well, shit._  "Bruce, you gotta fight it," she said. "This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay, alright? Just…listen to me." She fell silent at the sound of voices approaching them, turning to see that a few crew members were jogging over to come help them.

"You hurt?" one of them called out, his voice still pretty far off. Her eyes widening, Katniss waved them away with her hand, the other hand pressed down on the floor as she tried to wriggle free from the rubble again. Her attempt was futile. She shot a knowing glance over at Bruce that she knew the men would see, and they quickly ran off in the direction once she did. There went her last chances of getting out, but better one man down than five.

"We're gonna be okay, right?" She watched uncomfortably as Bruce hunched over, still desperately trying to contain the Hulk. She did a bit of her own trying, yet again attempting to push herself out of the rubble. Relaxing every muscle in her body, she closed her eyes and counted to three before trying to propel her body out from beneath the pole, but it didn't work. She'd need something to boost her out, something to give her a kick and she couldn't feel either of her legs except for the tingling feeling in her feet. She was trapped.

Her fist slamming down on the floor in frustration, she kept talking, her voice shaking. "Bruce, I swear to you on my _life_ , we can get you out of this, you’ll walk away and never—"

" _Your_  life?" Bruce paused in the midst of attempting to drive the transformation back down inside, almost like he was trying to stuff something into a cabinet drawer. His voice didn't even sound like his own as he made eye contact with her. Even there in the dim lighting, Katniss could see that Bruce's skin had a green tint to it and that his clothes were slowly starting to rip apart at the seams. _Definitely getting worse._

Bruce turned his back to her, giving way to the transformation and it beginning to truly start to take its toll on him. His shirt ripping as he threw his head back, and the veins in his neck popping out every time he let out a strangled growl, Katniss was now in flight mode, desperate to break free from the underneath the pipe as she tried to coax herself down from panicking. Bruce wouldn't hurt her, the two of them were friends—Katniss would even go so far as to call him her closest friend on the ship, seeing as how he was the one person that she'd not been annoyed with once since her arrival. No, Bruce couldn't hurt her. There was no way he'd let that happen. The other guy …he was who she _was_ worried about, and he was who she was about to have to deal with. Slowly losing all feeling in her leg, including the tingling, Katniss began struggling to pull herself free from the rubble. She knew that she had to figure out a way to get free, regardless of whether or not Bruce transformed.

It was beginning to look like there was no avoiding the Hulk's appearance, since Bruce had scuttled off of the small platform they'd landed on, green muscles bulging out of the remains of his shirt. The sweat now dripping down Katniss' face, she watched in horror as Bruce continued to grow. He stopped only for a moment to look back at her, his face almost completely unrecognizable as he shot her what had to be her last warning. His eyes were sympathetic, as if he were apologizing for what was about to happen. That, or he was signaling for her to get the hell out of there. "Bruce," she whispered shakily, her entire body trembling underneath the weight of the rubble as she tried to hold herself up.

Two seconds had passed and Bruce had ripped his shirt to pieces, the rest of his chest growing double in size as he let out a roar this time. A white knuckled grip on the edge of the floor, Katniss looked over her shoulder as she desperately tried to wriggle free. Her legs were still stuck, had hardly moved, and she could barely even feel them. Not even bothering to look back at Bruce, who was no longer Bruce if the sounds of him stumbling around were in fact him, she managed to slide her right leg out from underneath the rubble.  _One leg down, one more to go,_  she tried to reassure herself. It was numb as she moved it around, trying to find the best way to place it so she could kick herself free. A loud, animalistic roar came from the far end of the hallway—the Hulk, more than likely, and Katniss knew her time was up.

Her eyes shut and teeth clenched together, she quickly counted to three before pushing her freed leg off of the rubble, allowing the other one to finally come out and the pole hitting the floor with a loud bang. A gasp escaping from her lips loudly as she scrambled to get up, she scrambled as quickly as she could away from the platform, before turning to look back at Bruce. He was definitely not Bruce anymore; he was one hundred percent the Hulk now. Stopping in her tracks and holding her breath, she watched in horror as the Hulk slowly turned around, his eyes just barely glaring at hers with his teeth bared at her. She was frozen at the sight, but her instincts kicked in without allowing her brain the chance to catch up as she turned on her heel and sprinted for the staircase. The Hulk let out another frustrated roar and took off after her.

The Hulk hot on her heels as she sprinted up the stairs, Katniss paused only for a split second to turn around. There was a metal bar up to her side, and closing her eyes, praying that she wasn’t misplacing her trust in the adrenaline coursing through her system, she took a literal leap of faith. It was only a moment of decision to grab the bar hovering over her head and she allowed the little momentum she'd gained to swing her over the bar to the beam resting next to it. The Hulk tore the staircase away seconds after she jumped, tossing it to the side like it was nothing more to him than a piece of paper.

There was nowhere else for her to run, and the Hulk was currently glaring at her, so she threw herself over another set of metal bars and landing on a ceiling vent in the process. A low moan fell past her as her back grazed the bars, landing on her hands and knees. She only caught one decent breath, her eyes widening in realization when she saw the shadow lurking underneath the vent, scurrying backwards and away from the vent right as the Hulk punched it out from underneath. Scrambling up onto her feet, Katniss realized there was nowhere else to run, so taking yet another leap, she grabbed onto a pipe in front of her and swung herself forward. Her feet landed a ways down, falling down half a level into a tucked away corner where the Hulk couldn't see her. She took that as a small moment of freedom, crawling away under another pipe through the rafters.

Not a lot was clear in her head, but a few things were for certain. She had to take advantage of the fact that she was stowed away in the beams between two levels and that the Hulk couldn't find her and put as much distance between the two of them as possible. Her breathing was heavy, and she did her best to keep it as quiet as she could. It was hard though, seeing as how her entire body was shaking, hands trembling as she used them to help push her forward. The feeling was slowly returning to her legs, but walking was still a bit of a stumbling dance. They were dragging along, and her back was still stinging from landing on top of those bars. Not only that, but her mind was racing wildly out of control, trying to register that Bruce had just tried to kill her. Was  _still_  trying to kill her.

Drawing a shaky breath, she knew that she needed to calm herself down or else she'd be waving a red flag in the bull's direction. Counting back down from fifteen in her head, Katniss desperately tried to get a handle on her emotions as the tears started sliding down her cheeks. She was alone down here. No one else but Bruce knew, and Bruce currently wasn't himself. More so, he was trying to literally squeeze the life out of her. Ever the pessimist, her mind immediately merged into one simple track, it being  _I'm going to die down here_. She had no idea what was going on at the surface; she wouldn't dare test to see if her comm was working as she was terrified it would give her away, she was completely on her own and had to deal with it.

Tucking herself in a small, enclosed area near a lot of pipes, Katniss reached for her gun and shakily took it off safety. Her grip around it was sweaty and white-knuckled, her breathing labored. The utter silence was enough to make her realize the ringing in her ears, as the horrific thought settled—as if she needed any more horrific ideas implanted in her head.  _God, did the explosion knock out my hearing?_ Frantically reaching for her comm to turn it on, something inside her stopped her from doing it.  _No. You'd rather be deaf than dead. Your breathing is loud enough, anything else and he’s going to find you._ She didn't have much time to contemplate her decision, as a loud clanking noise along the rafters signaled that she wasn't alone.

It couldn't be the Hulk, there would have been a lot more roaring associated with his approach. Pressing her back against one of the pipes, she peered her head around the corner, gun clenched against her chest. The breath hitched in her throat and threatened to come out in the form of a cough as she realized who it was stalking through the beams.  _Gale._ "Oh my god," she whispered, unable to keep the words inside her mouth.

She certainly hadn’t done so quietly enough, because Gale's head snapped over to her hiding spot, those haunting blue eyes glaring right through her. He was holding a bow and arrow, a bow and arrow that she knew she was a hell of a lot more comfortable with and that she wasn't half a match for him if she only had a gun. She wasn't as good a shot with it, and Gale was a decent shooter himself. "Come on out, Catnip," Gale's monotonous voice teased, the blood freezing inside her veins. “I know you’re here.” God, Loki was one twisted son of a bitch.

Somewhere she'd heard that all you needed was twenty seconds of crazy, stupid, sheer courage and something good would come out of it. Katniss only hoped that in the twenty seconds she was about to take, it would result in her walking away with her life. Revealing herself, she dodged the arrow that Gale let fly at that exact moment, sliding right for him and kicking him in the shins. He stumbled backwards, giving her the chance to get her fingers around the bow in his hand. She recognized it; it was the bow that she and Gale had found in the woods that day, the one that had randomly waltzed into their lives before all of the madness. Her memories cost her that one, as Gale delivered a blow directly to her jaw and knocking the gun straight out of her hands. Katniss' ears were still ringing as she reached up to block any of his hits, missing horribly.

Gale dropped the bow, his hands grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back, exposing her neck. She thrashed around in his grip as he slammed her against a pipe, his kneecap pressing roughly into her thigh to keep her pinned there. He untangled one of his hands from her hair, reaching behind him and pulling an arrow from his quiver, shoving the tip against her throat.

"Gale…" Katniss choked out. "Gale, please, don't do this."

An ugly smirk plastered over his lips as he applied a bit more pressure on the arrowhead, Katniss struggling to break free. "Sorry sweetheart," he crooned. Was it really about to come to this? Was Gale about to thrust the arrow through her throat and kill her, leaving someone to find her—if someone ever did find her? Whimpering, she tried to find a way to wiggle loose, but Gale yanked her head back again, slamming against the pipe. She groaned in pain loudly, wincing internally. Great. Hulk was probably on his way to finish her off now, if Gale didn't do it first. She watched his eyes, those menacing blue eyes of his stare her down, almost mocking her as he held her there, making her wait for her death to come.

But it never did.

It was like something snapped inside him, and he dropped the arrow on the ground, a clanking sound following. He stepped away from her, hands raised in mock arrest. Katniss could hardly believe her eyes; he’d literally had her at his mercy and could have axed her with one little movement of his arm, but was backing away? Loki's voice then rang out in her voice.  _Hawthorne won't have that pleasure. I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to._  Right, Gale wasn't the one who got to off her. Someone else had dibs on that.

"You're going to burn, Catnip," Gale sneered cryptically, shaking her from her thoughts as he turned around. "This whole ship is going down in flames, and it's going to take you right along with it." He stalked off, on his heel, Katniss too baffled to follow after him to steal some arrows to go with the abandoned bow, or put a bullet in his brain herself. She knew the latter of the three options was too far-fetched; she couldn't bear to look at Gale and kill him, but it was a better idea than standing around waiting for someone else to do it to her. Her breathing fell heavy again as it sank in, Gale being here with only one set job: kill her. First Bruce, now Gale. The two people in this world who she considered her friends, both trying to kill her. What a day this was turning out to be.

Staggering through the rafters as she tried to catch her breath on the go, fist holding tightly to the bow and single arrow he’d left her. _One shot_ , she thought to herself. _Better make it count._ No sooner had the words echoed in her mind was there a deafening roar in her face, the ringing returning to her ears. Instinctually, Katniss reached up and fired at one of the pipes over her head, steam busting out. _There goes that whole one shot._ The Hulk roared again, louder this time before launching off after her.

Running was never her strong suit, and that was shown as she stumbled over something, finding herself running through a tight glass hallway. The Hulk was hot on her heels as she turned around, sprinting towards something—what, she wasn't quite sure of, but something had to be better than nothing. There were sparks flying all around her as the Hulk shattered everything that he ran past, fists flying and all. She threw the bow down, using her hands tried to shield herself from the falling shards of glass and sparks, jumping over each individual frame in the hall that rose up out of the ground. She was too slow though, as the Hulk finally caught up to her and slammed her off to the side.

Her back hit against a wall, a harrumph pushing itself past her lips as she crumpled onto the ground. The wind had been knocked clean out of her, the bow was gone and the Hulk might have been temporarily delayed by flying into the opposite wall, but that didn't mean he was delayed for long. A tear fell down her cheek as she slid against the wall; her legs sprawled out as she tried to move, avoid the oncoming threat of the Hulk who was approaching her once again. She was stuck, and he was moving closer with the intent to kill. "Bruce," she moaned weakly, staring up at him. He just huffed again, reaching down to end her when there was a loud punching noise and the Hulk went flying through the opposite wall.

Katniss struggling to sit up, she could see that her savior had come in the form of a Norse god in an obnoxiously flashy outfit. Thor's name was bubbling on her lips but she couldn't find a way to get it out. Instead, her heart rate continued to raise faster and faster, her breathing labored and short. She was now gasping for air, it not flowing into her lungs like she needed. Growing increasingly lightheaded and her palms clammy as she felt around, Katniss tried to find something, _anything_ within reach to shake her out of this. Her stomach was doing back flips and the only thing she could really think of was that her lips were dry and she wanted a glass of water. She clenched her eyes shut in a vain attempt to try and stop everything from moving so quickly around her, her ears ringing still as the sound of things being demolished in the background, and her thoughts were swimming faster than she could tread water.

_You're going to burn, Catnip._

The weight pressed further down on her chest.

_I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to._

She wasn't breathing enough, god, she wasn't breathing enough—

 _Natasha named_ me _her godfather!_

Was the room spinning last time? Was the persistent buzzing noise that loud a minute ago?

_I don't understand why you're being so childish over all this!_

The knot in her stomach, her heart hammering in her throat, she felt like any moment she'd throw up, or maybe just collapse and die; why hadn't she died?

_This ship is the lighter, and you are the fuse._

**Count in your head.**

**One.**

_You're impatient—_

**Two.**

**-** _stubborn—_

**Three.**

_-hot headed—_

Katniss was as good as gone.


	12. blood

The time lapse from when she'd been thrown against the wall like a rag doll to when she'd finally come down from her panic attack could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes, Katniss wasn't aware of which it was. Her head was still reeling as she let out a low groan from the aching pain in her back. She was hoping for the best, namely that something wasn't broken or that she had any kind of injury other than a bruise. Those, she knew she had.

There was no telling what was going on above the surface; her comm was still off, her legs still felt like they were made of gelatin and while the ringing in her ears had stopped, her head was spinning. If anything was for certain in her shaky, fragile state of mind, she knew that finding out what was going on was crucial. Why Gale was on the ship, what was going on elsewhere through the Helicarrier, if they were all about to die, everything.

Instinctually curling up into a ball, arms locked around her knees, Katniss buried her face into the space between either of her kneecaps to keep from passing out. She could still hear the Hulk's roar echoing out in her ears, and the ringing had subsided slightly, which she figured a good thing. Taking a shaky breath, a whimper tumbled out after as the floor seemed to tilt underneath her. She was still clenching her teeth, trying to calm herself down and get rid of the nausea that hadn't gone away with the panic attack.  _Count your breaths, count your breaths, just count, dammit._ The floor continued to move, the whole ship appearing to tip to the side. Katniss arched her back against the wall—maybe it was a wall, maybe it was a trunk, who knew—trembling, doing her best to anchor her feet onto the ground and keep from sliding downwards.

Things had officially been shot to hell. The Helicarrier was now flying sideways, if it was even flying at all, she'd just escaped the Hulk and her possessed best friend within a literal inch of her life, and her panic attack had left her more drained than ever. She was dripping sweat, still gasping for breath and with the nausea flipping her stomach over and over again; she contemplated death to be a better option than sitting here any longer.

Okay, so maybe _now_ was a good time to reconsider turning the comm back on, since she was at a loss for ideas on where to pick back up.

Shakily reaching up to her ear, her fingers fumbled before turning the comm unit back on, and it was like a rush of noise in her ear. Pandemonium was probably a better word to describe it, but she considered it a relief she could still hear.

"Engine one is on shut down!"

"Wishbone, do you copy?"

"That's two engines down, is Stark out there repairing that engine?"

"He is, but Loki's guys are doing their hardest to keep this ship from staying in the air."

"Where's Everdeen, why is she not responding?"

"Everdeen?! Forget the girl; where's Loki?"

"What happened?"

"It's Barton," Fury's calm and steady voice came over the comm, and while Katniss' stomach should have turned over in rage, she was grateful to hear his voice in her ears. It gave her a slight reassurance that this whole thing wasn't going straight to the ground, and quite literally at that. "He took out our systems; he's headed for the detention lab. Does anyone copy?"

Katniss looked to her side, trying to think of how far she was from the detention lab. She figured it wouldn't be too far of a walk from where she was currently—she hadn't exactly had too much time to memorize the map of the Helicarrier, and plus, she was dying to find out what the spiel on him was all about. And if Barton was the threat, he needed to be eliminated. Flight mode was over for her; she’d entered fight mode, and if taking him out meant she survived this, then that was what she was going to do.

Pressing the comm in her ear, she took one final deep breath, finding her sea legs somewhere and pulling herself up off the trunk she'd been leaning against. "Everdeen," she said, her voice low. "I copy." With that, she took her hand off of the trunk for support and set off to find Barton on the detention level.

She figured the easiest way down to the detention lab, or anywhere near it was through the rafters. That way, she'd have all of the pipes and beams and the added bonus of darkness to conceal her, giving her the advantage. Katniss resumed breathing deeply and counting in her head, her seemingly foolproof mechanism so far of getting through this shit show. Barton was a master archer, as in _not the kind of archer she was_. He'd been trained by the best; he was a professional sniper, whereas Katniss used her bow and arrow to kill a few turkeys, and maybe a deer if she got a good shot. The situation didn't get much better once she took into account that she didn’t have anything on her—she was wishing she’d picked up her gun when she’d had the chance—to defend herself with, and Barton had his weapon of choice. The odds couldn't seemingly stack any higher against her, but they kept climbing on.

Fighting Gale was one thing. Fighting Gale was something that she knew she at least had a chance with, since she knew the places where he'd tick and that she could gain the upper hand in. She wasn't a combat, hand-to-hand kind of person. She wrestled, with Gale, for leisure alone. At least her fight back with him earlier was something she'd been somewhat accustomed to, something she could escape her life with if not win, even without her bow and arrow. Hell, this wasn't even like sparring with Steve, who was a super soldier and was able to defeat solely by the element of surprise. Fighting Barton; disarming him, taking him down, especially under Loki's possession, there was virtually no way of her coming out on top. She was fucked.

Sliding between a set of pipes, her feet landed quietly on the metal plating that lined a walkway, most likely on the way to the detention lab. Peering down the walkway, all she saw was an arrow quiver and a set of extremely cut arms.  _Got you._

Katniss began tiptoeing behind him, watching as he ducked underneath a large steel beam that was hanging low. She assumed this was her best bet at trying to find an upper hand to take him out, or at least, somewhere to start. Her boots made just as much noise as his did on the metal, so she aligned her footsteps with his, sounding like one.  _This is almost like hunting,_ she thought to herself, her mindset becoming a lot clearer.  _Treat it like he's your prey. This is your chance at dinner tonight, and you're starving._ Her pep talk didn't last too much longer, as Barton reached into his quiver for an arrow, her heart hammering in her throat at the adrenaline rush.

_Here we go._

Barton swiveled around, preparing to shoot, but Katniss pushed the bow away from her face and held it out as he let the arrow fly.  _If he's as good a shot as Fury says, then maybe my best bet is to make sure he runs out of arrows. Then he can't fire, and it gives me time to get a read on him._  Katniss kept an iron grip on the bow as he jutted it backwards, meeting her face with a loud crack. She stumbled backwards, doing her best to keep from falling but instead, jumping away slightly from his next hit. He took the bow, swinging it down in order to split her skull, she assumed, which she ducked from. Barton completely off guard, Katniss briefly remembered how delayed Steve had been whenever she kicked him, using one of her now only barely wobbling legs to deliver a hard kick right to his abdomen. He was the one who staggered back now, trying to regain his balance before she threw her next blow.

Katniss took complete advantage of the fact he had put quite a distance between them and jumped down between the gap in the walkway and a large cooling gas pipe. Her hands met the railing, pushing her body down the slanted surface her back met. There was a small walkway next to it, so she grabbed onto a pole and swung around right as Barton jumped underneath to join her. He was playing to kill, and sure enough, he was proving that the whole run out of arrows idea she'd had was formulated in vain. Raising her leg, she kicked him in the gut yet again, doing what she knew worked well for her the first time she tried it. He reached for his arrow once again, and her head darting over her shoulder, she realized there was nowhere to run. "Fuck,” she muttered inaudibly through her clenched teeth as she took the only chance she had to dodge his arrow, going airborne. He fired right as she jumped through the gap between the corridor she was on and another on the opposite side, hands clenching onto another steel pole and using the force of her jump to swing around to ensure she landed flat footed.

Barton made the jump in one clean step, now right in front of her. It didn't give her too much time to think of a next move, his face was inches away from her own. God, his eyes were just like Gale's; an eerie blue, slightly bloodshot around the edges and looked like he hadn't slept in months as opposed to a few days. He was throwing the bow around, aiming to hit her with it, but she managed to evade each individual blow by the skin of her teeth. Barton managed to nab her in the side, before jabbing the bow in the direction of her neck. Katniss threw her fists up in front of her face to block, meeting him with resistance and sending him stumbling back a few steps. Of course, when he came back, he only came back harder. Readjusting his grip on the bow, Katniss took the little chance she had and did her best to jam it back into his chest. It didn't work.

Instead, Barton was able to hit her back with it, taking her off guard and slamming it into her wrists. She let out a strangled moan of pain, but quickly shut up as he pinned her up against the edge of the railing with the bow. He tried his best to shove it into her trachea, but she was struggling against him, to which he kneed the fleshy area of her thigh with his kneecap. Growling, she took one of her fists and nailed him right underneath his chin, causing him to drop the bow. There were only two options at that point. Grab the bow, or keep fighting. Katniss knew she needed the bow to stand a chance so she picked it up, guarding herself with it right as Barton whipped out a dagger.  _Right. Master assassin. Probably has more than one weapon on him, and can probably use it just as well. Great, great, great._

The two of them stood in a little one off for a moment, staring each other down. "You gonna kill me?" she panted, trying to catch her breath. Barton didn't respond. Her eyes narrowed into slits. "I said, are you going to kill me?"

Her voice had grown louder and echoed off of the walls surrounding them. Instead, Barton just smirked at her as he twirled the dagger around, not saying a word, his invitation for her to make a move. “Not today,” she breathed.

Katniss lunged at him with the bow, swinging it in a downwards slashing movement in hopes to at least knock the dagger out of his hand. One of his fists came up to punch her in the jaw, reminding her vaguely of her sparring session with Steve. Her own curled up fist blocked it, pushing it back down. She threw her knee up, getting him in the side and causing him to stoop down slightly. Katniss backed herself up as he came back up, slashing the air with his knife and poising it to stab her. She threw the bow to the side, obviously seeing no use with it anymore. Delivering another swift punch to his side and grabbing the hand with the dagger in it, trying to push it away, she met some resistance from him. Katniss took both her hands and began to twist his arm backwards while raising it up, getting a gasp of pain out of him. She then pushed it down to her side, reaching to steal the dagger before he threw it up and caught it with the opposite hand.  _Well shit._

He slashed at the air, Katniss ducking just in time. Barton reached out again to clothesline her against the opposite rail, but she managed to catch his arm and shove it back in the direction of his body. Katniss had gotten a grasp on it as he tried to wiggle free from the grip her elbow and forearm had provided, lifting her slightly off the ground as he realized what she'd done. Her other hand tightening around the one with the dagger bestowed in it, the two were nothing more than a tangle of arms and hands, keeping each other in a death lock. He pinned her up against a pole, her gaining some control of his hand and shoving the dagger in the direction of his own throat. Katniss was standing on her tiptoes now as he backed up, trying to avoid his own weapon.

What she hadn't expected was for him to use his spare arm to reach around and grab the roots of her hair, yanking back as hard as he could to expose her neck. Another cry of pain escaped her as the two did their own little dance across the path, trying to win for dominance. Barton had the dagger hovering right over her neck, the point ready to pierce into her flesh and while she was trying hard to avoid it, she just couldn't. Breathing heavily, she only saw one way out of this, one of the most basic escape moves in the book. She tilted her head as far as she could and sunk her teeth into the flesh of his arm. Through his teeth, he let out a strangled growl, dropping the dagger as he took his free arm and tried to slam her on the ground.

Katniss used the momentum and flipped herself over his arm, still unable to shake him free. He had a tight grip on her waist, and she knew that this was bad. Letting out a grunt, she turned around and took a few steps forward, ramming him back into the side of the safety railing as hard as she could, head first. Barton finally let go of her, his head meeting the rail with a loud and echoing clang. He slumped against the rail, falling down it as he moaned in agony. Katniss watched as he struggled to regain his stature, slouching all the way down to the ground and having to use some of the trip wires to pull himself back up to his knees.

Barton found his balance, slowly lifting himself up as he stared at her. The aching blue that showed sign of possession was still there in his eyes, but it wasn't like it had been. It seemed as though it had diminished, was beginning to fade. "Katniss," he whispered. He didn't have time to say much more even if he had wanted to, because Katniss reared back and sent her fist colliding with his face as hard as she possibly could. Barton toppled over, rendered unconscious.

Katniss took the moment of solitude to catch her breath. She'd been wrong; after her encounter with the Hulk, she'd merely been glistening with sweat, now she was truly dripping in it, what from the fight and the heat of the engines close by. She wiped her forehead, reaching up to press the comm link in her ear. "This is Katniss," she said, her voice huskier than normal and shaking slightly. "I've got Barton here down on the detention level. Does anyone copy?"

"I copy. Is Barton contained?" Fury's voice came back.

"Out like a light.” Stepping over him and using the toe of her boot to move his face from side to side, she gave a small shrug. "I hit him pretty hard on the head, you might better call for a med team."

"Everdeen, taking him out was not your--”

"It’s done, is it not?” Katniss retorted sharply, reaching over to pull the braid out of her hair. Where Barton had gotten a good grip on it, her head was aching and she needed to let it fall free. "Send for someone to come get him. Maybe a med team; they can determine whether not I just gave him a concussion or knocked Loki clean out of him."

Fury sounded puzzled when he replied. "You think you shook him free from Loki's spell?"

Katniss shrugged again. "He looked up at me and said my name, like it was his first time seeing me despite being present the whole time he nearly killed me. Don’t know how he knew my name, either.” There was a pause on the opposite end, almost as if Fury was unsure to reply to that or not. "Where's Tony?" Katniss asked him.

"Engine Three," he sighed. "Katniss, stay—"

"Stay here?" she scoffed. "Find him yourself; it's not that big of a ship." Katniss then reached down and pulled the quiver out from underneath Barton, slinging it onto her back. She picked up the bow that had been slung to the side in the midst of their fight and begin stalking off in the same direction she’d come, in pursuit of Engine Three.

It felt good to have a quiver full of arrows strapped to her back and a bow back in her hands. The gun holster had no weight to her anymore, knowing that it didn’t matter if it was there or not since she was armed with what she knew best. Given the information she had, her guess was that Loki's men had invaded the Helicarrier, probably to retrieve Loki himself and that sinking the ship was just their little added incentive. There had been no sort of all-clear call in her comm, so that meant there was still a high chance of rogue agents still running amuck through the ship. Katniss felt twenty times more reassured now that she had her comfort weapon in her possession now; threats were no longer _threats_ for her.

She fiddled with the string on the bow slightly; it wasn't her usual bow, after all, it was Barton's. The string was definitely a lot tighter, and the overall make of the bow was sleeker, even more so than the ones she'd trained with at SHIELD. Katniss wasn't even going to start messing with the arrowheads, they all looked intimidating sitting in her quiver and glinting at her in the light.

It took a bit of time to find the way to Engine Three; she’d had to reroute to the remains of Bruce's lab in order to establish a set direction. Shattered glass was scattered all over the floor from where the explosion had blown out the windows and Katniss had to tread carefully to avoid getting any glass in her foot. There were agents scattered all over the floor, agents that she hoped and prayed with everything in her were just Loki's minions.  _Listen to yourself, Katniss. You can't be thinking like that. These were people with families, lives outside of SHIELD—if it's possible to have a life outside of this circus. They're just people who got a really short end of the stick._  She rounded the corner to where a sign of a small arrow that read 'ENGINE ACCESS' was hinged onto the wall. The open doorway was in her sight, and Katniss ran a hand through her loose hair before pulling one of Barton's arrows from her quiver and stringing it. There was no such thing as being too careful anymore, her entire self still on the defense. Katniss was ready to call out for Tony, but she never did get to as her comm crackled in again with Fury's somber voice on the opposite end.

"Agent Coulson is down."

No. That was impossible, Agent Coulson? Coulson, who knew where all the big guns and the _literal_ big guns were at, who was Fury's right hand man—even more so than Hill—who couldn't possibly die, down?  _No._ This wasn't about death. He was just…down. On his way to the medical wing of the Helicarrier. Knocked unconscious. Maybe a few scrapes. He'd be fine. He would be fine. This whole thing was never about death, they hadn’t gotten to that point yet; they weren’t there. They _couldn’t_ be there. Her hand twitching as she held onto the arrow, Katniss waited with bated breath for Fury to elaborate.

"There's a med team on its way—"

"They're already here," Fury interrupted whoever had responded to the call. "They called it."

Katniss hadn't been this angry since finding out who her mom was, if that. Coulson was not  _dead._  He couldn't be dead. There was no way in hell he was dead, this was a joke, this was just agent lingo that she didn't understand, he was fine, he  _had to be fine—_

But people kept talking in her ear, confirming the opposite. Katniss' blind rage took her over as she let out a choked sob, her hands shaking as she did her best to keep the bow and arrow in place. She stepped forward, her feet made of lead as she thought back to her conversation with Coulson, how he'd been one of the first people to actually address her as her and reassure her that her identity crisis was nothing major, that she was still the same person she was when she'd boarded the ship. How he'd told her she'd figure things out if she didn't think she already had. He had been so understanding, so…so fatherly towards her, like he had been looking out for her the entire time. He was the one who had sent Tony to watch out for her, he  _had_  been looking out for her ever since she'd walked on board and long before that.

Tony's name, the only name aside from Coulson's that she could process, the only person she needed at the moment no matter how pissed she was with him, was threatening to spill over her lips when her foot accidentally collided with something still. Looking down through her blurred eyesight from the tears welling, she could see that it was one of Loki's guys, dressed in the same attire that Barton had if not with a little more padding. Her lips turned downwards into a scowl as she drew the arrow back further, resting a foot on his shoulder.  _He was one of Loki’s._

_Loki killed Coulson._

She didn't think in that moment, she just fired.

Letting her bow fall to her side in horror, she ran away from the body and around the corner so she was out of sight. Her own back slammed against the wall as she tried to process all of her thoughts, but none of them seemed to sink in quite right. Nothing was fathomable.

She heard Steve and Tony rush in from outside. "Who was that?" Steve called out, but Katniss didn't dare answer; she was having enough trouble finding her own inner voice, much less her actual one. "Who d'you reckon was here? Loki's guys?"

"I doubt it," Tony mumbled.

"Whoa," Steve breathed. "Who do you think did  _that?"_

Katniss assumed that they were standing over the body at that point, not daring to peek around the corner. Instead, she peeled herself off the wall and slowly started to stagger off in the opposite direction as she held on to the last little bits of Steve and Tony's conversation.

"Who's the best shot on this ship with a bow and arrow?"

"You don't think—"

"Baby bird."


	13. those stormy eyes

**_LOCATION: REMOTE LABORATORY_ **

_"And he's going to be putting together a team."_

_"Are they a threat?"_

_"To each other, more than likely. But if Fury can get them on track—and he might, they could throw some noise our way."_

_It wasn't something Clint Barton would be saying if he had any control over his tongue, or his mind for that matter. Deep down in the tunnels that Loki had burrowed them into—Clint's choosing, really, because it wasn't like the Radisson would be meeting the standard requirements for stabilizing a power source for the cube or hiding them from Fury—they were all sitting and waiting on their next move. Selvig, the bastard, was just now realizing that they needed one of the most heavily protected and rarest elements on the face of the damn planet. In his own mind or not, Clint was past the point of frustrated and tired of being a sitting duck. It didn't do anyone a bit of good._

_"I want to know everything you can tell me about this team of his," Loki's voice echoed off of the walls inside one of the tunnels he and Barton had wandered into. Loki stopped in front of Clint, facing his recruit. "Tell me."_

_Fury would have killed him for even breathing it out, and the little bit of him—the actual Clint—that was suppressed under all of the mind control was screaming to resist, but Loki's hold over him forced it out anyways. "The first one he's going to go after is Steve Rogers. Steve was the first official superhero," Clint said. Loki scoffed at the sound of the word 'superhero', but Clint kept going. "The serum they injected him with was developed during World War Two; gave him super strength, the works. He was a threat, but he’s also been on ice for seventy years since crashing into the Arctic with the Tesseract. After they woke him up, he’s even more confused than your kind down here; world's a different place than he's used to. But, he’ll be who Fury wants first, he’s the only one fit to lead them. He gets Steve on board, uniting them won’t be as hard._

_"The next big guy Fury’ll go hot and heavy after is Tony Stark. Stark's an engineer, very tech-savvy. His newest building in New York is now running on self-sustaining energy; huge press surrounding that one. Kinda hard to miss it, really. He's also got his suit, the Iron Man, which is as good a weapon as anything. Helps him fly, fights for him, does all the tricks, he’s not much in a fight without it. Fury's going to have to do quite a bit of persuading to get him on board. Stark's narcissistic, won't play well with anyone else; I'll be shocked if Fury can get him to cooperate. He was denied for the program initially," Clint mused._

_"Anyone else?"_

_Clint nodded. "Your brother will more than likely be traced down, I'm sure you're very familiar with his back story." A scowl twisted its way onto Loki's face as he motioned for Clint to carry on. "Dr. Bruce Banner; I'm not sure how much luck Fury will have with him since he's pretty much isolated himself off in India. Banner was a scientist, had a very nasty experience with some gamma radiation, and now he's a party of two. When the guy loses his cool, he turns into this thing they called the Hulk; pretty much a monster. Huge, horrible temper, won't hesitate to destroy you if you get in its way."_

_"Hmm," Loki mused, pondering in thought of all the information Clint had fed to him. "If this is the team that Fury's scurrying to scrounge up, I don't see how there will be any issue fighting off their defenses—"_

_"That's not all, sir," Clint interrupted. Loki stopped, raising an eyebrow at Clint._

_"Go on."_

_Clint exhaled. "I was in charge of guarding the cube, mainly because the plan was to strap me on the team as well. Fury wanted someone observant that could keep eyes on everything, and he sat me on the cube since I fit the bill. But there was another SHIELD agent, another one he had on the roster. Agent Romanoff, the Black Widow. She was Fury's number one pick from the get go for his little response team, she’s lethal and she’s unsuspecting, it’s hard to picture someone like her packing as hard of a punch as she does. She's very grey, sir, and it’s why Fury admired her, especially for this. She doesn't fight for the good or the bad; she fights because she has to. I'd say if she was still around, she's your biggest threat."_

_"What do you mean, still around?" Loki replied stiffly._

_Clint shrugged. "She was killed in action a few years back, or at least, that's what they deemed it."_

_Loki nodded, his eyes scanning over Clint's demeanor. "I see. Agent Barton, was there anything there between yourself and Romanoff?" Clint stiffened at the sound of that, but kept his mouth shut. "Agent Barton, was there anything between you two?" Loki pried again, more demanding this time. "Answer me."_

_"Yes," Clint finally replied. "We did have something. But she's gone now, I can't bring her back."_

_"And were there any benefits in that relationship?” Clint was silent again, his mouth twisting into something like a frown. "Agent Barton, that was a question."_

_"Wouldn't necessarily call it a benefit, sir," Clint grumbled._

_"Tell me," Loki gestured for him to continue as they continued walking down the halls of the tunnel they were currently patrolling. Clint massaged his jaw, averting his gaze away from Loki._

_"She got pregnant about seventeen years ago and had the baby. Gave the baby up though; she was scared it was going to be a liability and didn't want anything happening to it. Not to mention she wasn’t sure how well she’d take to being a mother, since the Red Room had programmed her to be an assassin and made her think they’d eliminated all chances of her ever having kids. Fury was sworn to keep the baby away from this world, keep her in isolation where she'd be safe. The girl's still alive from what I understand." Clint saw the warped smile on Loki's face._

_"And would Fury go so far as to recruit her?"_

_"Not sure. Fury says he'll do one thing and does something else."_

_Loki stopped in his tracks, turning to face Clint. "Agent Barton, if Fury brought the girl on, would she be a…liability to your loyalties?"_

_Clint's face showed no emotion. "No sir."_

_"Good," Loki mused. "Because if she was, if the girl posed any sort of…threat to our cause, I will eliminate her; do you understand that?"_

_"Yes sir."_

_On the outside, Clint gave a curt nod before turning sharply on his heel and prowling back down the tunnel to where Selvig was to make plans to get the iridium. He could hear Loki's voice inside of his head, giving him his commands, and the threat was still echoing in the back of his mind._ If the girl posed any sort of threat to our cause, I will eliminate her. _Deep inside the small part of his brain in which the real Clint was tucked away, buried underneath Loki's possession, Clint was screaming for a way out. He was screaming for someone to hear him, to keep Katniss safe and away from all this. Every curse he knew he was hurtling in Loki's direction, promising to kill him if he touched a hair on his daughter's head._

_A shame that he was pushed down so far and completely helpless to all of Loki's commands, even the ones that threatened to destroy everything he still cared about._

* * *

Everything hurt.

His head felt like it had been stuffed full with lead, weighing more than he remembered as he let it fall against whatever sad contraption he was now sitting on. It felt like there was a giant weight crushing his chest as he strained to move, only to be restricted by the arm restraints he'd been tied down in. The room was spinning as he clenched his eyes shut; sliding up on what he now could classify was a hospital bed and ground his teeth together. "Christ," he moaned as he strained against the cuffs once again. A blurry figure that looked a hell of a lot like Nick Fury stood in the corner of the room, almost like a statue.

"You're going to be alright, Agent."

"Oh yeah?" Clint hissed, wincing at the throbbing of his head. "What do you know?"

"I know that you're back with us, and I know that you're going to be okay," Fury stated simply.

"You don't…understand," he sighed, resting his head on the back of the elevated bed as he struggled to catch his breath. "Have you ever had someone take out your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" He lifted his eyes up to where Fury was, standing nonchalantly across the way.

"Can't say I'm too familiar with the feeling, but I’m sure it’s a relative thing."

Looking around the small room, Clint moved his hands against the restraints; they were incredibly tight around his wrists, ensuring he wouldn't break loose. "Why am I back?" he finally asked. "How did you get him out?"

"Oh, I wasn't the one who got him out, but from what I understand, it was cognitive re-calibration. You were hit very hard on the head," Fury explained, not moving from his spot across the room. In fact, if Clint wasn't mistaken, he saw the director slide back a few inches.

"Then who—" Clint started to ask who had hit him, but he found himself at a loss for words as his mind started racing. It was all slowly coming back to him; his head colliding with a metal bar and a loud bang, looking up at the face of a girl. It was a girl, couldn't be much older than seventeen, a look of fire in her eyes that he'd sworn he'd seen before and the lips and nose of someone, someone that he knew all too well. An insolence that couldn't have been inherited from anyone else. A name slipping from his lips before losing consciousness, a name he hadn't thought about, much less said in years. His eyes meeting Fury's, he could see that he looked slightly uncomfortable; something that Nick Fury had never been a day in his life. And that was when it hit him like a ton of bricks. "No," he breathed.

It was like something had snapped inside of him, when Fury didn’t move to deny. Thrashing against the constraints that were keeping him to the bed, Clint fell into a blind rage. "You _promised_ her, you son of a fucking bitch! You promised us that you would never drag her into this! Son of a fucker—fuck, fucking bastard _, how dare you_?!" Clint roared.

"Agent Barton—"

"I’m going to kill you, Nick, I cannot _believe_ you!? We trusted you; _she_  trusted you and you betrayed that? Do you know what she did for that child, do you know the things that we all sacrificed to keep her safe, just for you to go and tarnish that because you're down a few people? I swear to god, you're lucky she's not still alive, because she would have destroyed you until there was no one left to remember what you looked like before.” Clint was seething, his vision blurred red and the taste of metal in his mouth as he tried to break through the straps holding him down. He knew that he could do it if he tried hard enough, and in that moment, all that mattered was getting his hands around Fury’s throat and squeezing until the life drained out of him.

"Agent—" Fury tried, to which he was cut off yet again.

" _She died for this, Nick!_ "

" _Clint_ _!_ " Clint fell silent, his chest rising and falling quickly as he tried to catch his breath. It had been years since Fury had called him by his first name. "Look, I know you're not happy about this—"

"Not happy? You didn't even scratch the surface with a toothpick on that one," Clint hissed.

"Stark knew about this, Coulson recruited him on this to keep her out of harm's way. We're still doing our best to keep protecting her, like you wanted."

"By putting her on this ship with a god and a grudge match that's caused how much damage, exactly? By dragging her into this world against Natasha's one and only wish, against my wishes, against every promise we made you swear to keep? Oh yeah, Nick, she's  _definitely_  safe. Especially with Tony watching her; someone who can barely take care of themselves looking out for my child? I'm feeling very reassured."

"Romanoff named Stark the girl's godfather shortly before going missing—"

"—I never said I agreed with everything that woman did—"

"Bottom line is," Fury said. "Is that we did what we had to do, and that was keep our world safe. We didn't have you or Romanoff—"

Clint was past appalled at this point. "So you call in our child as some sort of sick compensation? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Agent," Fury warned, his voice low. Clint shook his head.

"No. Get out of my sight. I can't even bear to look at you anymore." To prove his point, Clint averted his gaze and stared at the floor, trying to control his heart rate. He lifted his head only slightly to watch Fury turn his back and walk out of the containment room, not looking back twice. Clint didn't mind.

* * *

Katniss took a deep breath before placing her hand on the door's scanner, a small beep as it read her handprint and the door sliding open to grant her access. Fury calling for her over the comm to go down and visit Agent Barton was one thing, but the tone of voice he'd done it in was different. He sounded defeated for once, like he had just been punched in the gut. It was definitely something new. Agent Barton, who was sitting in the chair with restraints, opened his eyes slowly at the sound of company, letting out a low groan as he moved against the restraints currently holding him captive. His eyelids fluttered open wide as he realized who was standing in front of him, breath hitching in his throat.

She really did look just like her mother; the curve of her lips, shape of her nose, same body type and stature. Although she carried herself a lot differently than Natasha did—not with the same confidence, he noticed, her long brown hair hanging down her back in limp, heat-induced waves and her _eyes_. Those weren't Natasha's eyes, they were his. Clint straightened himself in his seat, clearing his throat as he did his best to smile at his daughter and not break. "Hi," he uttered out.

"Hi," she whispered back, awkwardly rolling the weight from one leg to another as she stood in front of him, unsure of what to think. "I, um, Fury said to come talk to you?"

"Said you were the one who knocked me out, broke the spell," Clint shrugged, before adding, "Thank you. For that."

"Glad I could be of service."

She watched as he shifted his legs over, nodding in the direction of the now-opened up space. "Sit down," he said, to which she complied with wordlessly. He watched her closely, how she moved just as gracefully as Natasha had doing even the smallest of things. Clint wanted nothing more than to reach out and wrap her up in his arms, but he needed to pace himself. Knowing Fury’s twisted logic, there was still a great chance she was entirely unaware, still living in the dark, and springing it on her would do neither of them any good.

Katniss didn't miss a beat in reaching over to Clint's restraints, undoing the buckles on them. Clint stared at her bewildered. He wasn't quite sure what the logic currently running inside her head was, and he wasn’t sure why it was there to start. She didn't even know him. The only things that she could possibly know about him were that Loki had taken him and that he had tried to kill her. She had been his target, and here she was freeing him without a second thought. He wanted to ask her why, but he figured that there wasn't a legitimate enough answer behind it. He knew he wouldn't have had one anyways, had the roles been reversed. She slid the strap off of one completely, freeing his right wrist. "How many agents?" he asked quietly, feeling the weight of the guilt slowly pressing back down on his shoulders.

Her head snapped up, every sense on red alert before realizing that he wasn't referring to what had happened after Coulson died. Relaxing, she reached over for the other restraint. "It's not important," she dismissed.

"To me it is," Clint explained.

Undoing it completely, Katniss let her hands fall from the cuff and rested them on the bed for a moment, trying to iron her thoughts out before speaking. She could feel the tears building back behind her eyes, even though she knew that now was not the time to cry. "Why, because you're the only person who's done something because of this?" she asked, her voice watery. "You're not. I killed a man a few hours ago. I killed him. I’ve never killed anyone before, only animals, I had a _code_ …and I still put an arrow straight through his chest and unlike you, he's not waking up from what I did to him. Ever.”

"You're…you're an archer?" Clint uttered, disregarding the fact that his daughter had just gotten something that was clearly very heavy and troubling off her chest, especially something as troubling as unprovoked murder.

Katniss looked up at him, puzzled. "I don't think you heard me when I said that I just killed someone."

"Right," he said, shaking his head as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, making more room for Katniss. She scooted back a bit, almost bumping shoulders with Clint. "Sorry, I just…I was kind of stunned to hear you say you shoot. Archery is kind of my thing."

"Oh, didn't mean to steal your spotlight or anything," she mumbled apologetically.

"No, it's okay," Clint quickly said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'd love to see you shoot sometime."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure if I'll be able to shoot again. Every target from now on will just be that guy's face that I killed."

Resting a hand on her shoulder, Katniss could feel the man next to her burning holes in her side as she desperately tried to keep her eyes away from his, out of fear the tears would start. "Hey," he said quietly. "You did what you had to do."

Katniss' head shot up, her eyes locking with Clint's. "That's the thing. I didn't do it because I had to. I did it because I wanted to. The only reason I killed him because I was…I don’t know, angry. Because I let my temper get the better of me." She stood up from the bed, walking towards the door and looking out the window. "God," she mused remorsefully. "Loki was right; I'm just a time bomb waiting to go off. I do it to myself."

Grabbing the glass of water sitting on the small tray next to him and taking a swallow of it, Clint spoke up in an attempt to derail her train of thought and change the subject. "Loki. He get away?"

"Don't suppose you know where," Katniss replied.

"Didn't need to know, I didn't ask." It was quiet for a moment as Katniss stared out of the window in the cell, Clint trying to swallow the water around the large knot that had formed in his throat the minute his child had stepped over that threshold. "He's going to make his play soon though," he said. "Today."

"We have to stop him."

"Yeah? Who's we?"

Katniss spun back around on her heel, shrugging and letting her hands brush her thighs. "I don't know. Whoever's left, I guess."

"Well, if I put an arrow in Loki's eye socket, I'd sleep better, I suppose." Clint sat the glass of water back on its tray, both hands resting in his lap as he stared back down at the floor. Katniss made her way back over to where he was, sitting back down beside of him.

"Yeah? Get in line," she muttered under her breath.

Clint chuckled. "You sound a lot like her, you know." Katniss lifted her head at the sound of that, averting her gaze up to where Clint was. "Your mom. I knew her. Crazy woman, but I loved her."

"Loved…?"

Letting out a long sigh, Clint finally brought himself to look his daughter in the eyes. God, those were his eyes looking back at him, her face, and it was killing him as he took a ragged breath. "Your mom did everything she could to protect you, so did I. We all did, everyone who knew about you from the get-go, and I thought Fury would hold up his end of the bargain. But it wasn't enough, because here you are, sitting here and talking to me." Pausing, he scratched the side of his face awkwardly, the tension growing as his heart sped up. "Katniss—"

Clint inhaled once again, holding it for a moment before exhaling deeply, a rush of courage flooding through him. He reached up behind his head, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, I don't…I don't know if you know it, but I'm your father," he whispered, the words tumbling out as he exhaled as he raised his eyes to where she was. Katniss could feel the words punch her right in the stomach.

It was very simple; his wording of it, but that didn't mean it didn't knock the wind out of her. She looked down, eyes focusing on the floor as she started counting her breathing like she always did. After her panic attack, she was still walking on shaking legs it seemed, and any little thing that had surprised her didn't take easily. She felt one of her hands slowly be encompassed by a larger, rougher one, rubbing small circles on the top of her hand. "Katniss," Clint whispered, his voice barely audible. She could feel the tears pricking her eyes as she did her best to process it all. The truth was out in the open, who  _both_  her parents were. Her father, her real father wasn't dead—she'd mourned for a man who wasn't even related to her, and yet she'd never mourned for the mother who she truly belonged to, only mourned for the loss of the one who sat in front of her and stared blankly ahead every time she walked in a house. _This_ was her family, not what she had known before. The feeling of Clint's thumb rubbing her hand kept her tethered to reality and not drifting among her sea of thoughts.

Looking up at him, she could see that his eyes were shining; most likely glazed over from tears. His eyes were the same stormy blue-gray as her own, exactly the same at that. And that was how she knew. Her lip quivering, she launched herself into his arms in a bone-crushing hug. A small groan escaped Clint, seeing as how she'd taken him by surprise and the fact that he was still aching from their fight earlier, but he got over it quickly. Wrapping his arms around her and feeling her own lock around his waist as she buried her face in his chest, he sighed. "You’re here," he muttered before pressing a kiss into the top of his daughter's hair.

"And you’re real,” Katniss mumbled her reply into his shirt. “For a moment, I thought Fury had just…made up the fact that he knew my real family, just so he could lure me along.”

"I'm sorry," he said. "For putting you in danger, for dragging you into all this—hell, for deciding we weren’t keeping you all those years ago. Letting her give you up just like that without so much as a second thought? I'd take it back; I'd take it all back now if I could."

"It's okay," Katniss whispered in reply. "I'm sorry for knocking you out cold earlier."

"Really, don't apologize for that one," Clint said, a biting laugh following. "I'm glad you did."

"If we're being all honest,  _I'm_  kind of glad I did; you were trying to kill me."

"Yeah…sorry about that, too."

Clint adjusted his grip on Katniss, leaving it so an arm was still resting around her shoulder but the other was resting by his side. "But now it's my turn to ask you a question," he said. "Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?"

"Acting like what?" Katniss asked.

"You're not a spy, you're not a soldier; you're not even an agent. But you're walking around ready to wade off neck deep into some war. Why's that?"

Katniss was silent as she bit down on her lip, trying to think of a legitimate answer. "I don't know," she finally mused, pursing her lips together. "Guess it's just got to do a lot with I don't know who I am anymore."

Clint nodded understandingly, giving her another side hug as she fell silent. "You’ll know when you know. Just give it some time."

The duo was silent for a moment, enjoying finally being in each other's presence before Katniss spoke up. "Well, at least now the baby bird nickname makes sense."

Clint's eyes narrowed. "Stark, that son of a bitch." For the first time in what felt like forever, Katniss laughed, and not just because something was funny either.


	14. a new york minute

Ever since she'd been twelve years old, Katniss always found her thoughts trailing back to the last time she'd ever seen her dad, the night before he died. The two of them had been out behind the house after dinner by the fire; Katniss had been playfully running around the fire pit while her dad sang, laughing along with her. Her mother had stayed inside to clean up and prepare for the next day at work, so it was just the two of them. Spending time with her dad was one of her favorite things about the weekends—especially Sundays, since the mines were closed—and she always eagerly looked forward to that time with him. Her father was the person she considered her best friend, the one person in the world she was closest to. They’d spent the night leisurely, making up songs and Katniss' dad promising to take her into the woods the following Sunday to teach her how to use her bow specifically for hunting game. They never did.

Now the memory seemed like it belonged to someone else, her situation having drastically changed. Katniss stayed for a good twenty minutes in the containment room with Clint, talking mostly about her experience with SHIELD and Gale and her life back in Twelve. Talking to him was easy; from what he'd told her, he wasn't one who was big on human interaction and neither was she, so naturally, the pair had no shortage of words for the other. One topic of conversation would flow into another and it was almost like she was falling back into some sort of routine that she'd had for years. She'd taken away a few things from their conversation though; Clint had met Gale but he didn't know him past basic introductions. Loki was using him simply as a ploy to get into Katniss’ head. Clint had furtively despised the fact that she'd been shipped off to the middle of nowhere, back in time and into complete isolation from the world, but he agreed with Natasha’s reasoning—there were plenty of people out there who would have used her as a target, and they wanted her safe.

Clint also explained that he'd been the one who was tasked to kill her once the time came; he was who Loki had been referring to during their little chat. It added up neatly in her mind when she thought back to Loki's taunts— _I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to._ It also seemed to have fucked a bit with Clint, having that order shoved into his brain against his will. His face darkened whenever he brought it up, looking away as though he was utterly ashamed that he'd allowed Loki to manipulate him in that way. The worst part of it was, he'd said, was that he was fully aware of everything and simply couldn’t resist.

Unfortunately, their time to catch up had been cut slightly short as they saw a med team pass by in the hallway. The two of them exchanged looks with a similar expression: _the world’s still turning outside, and the problem hasn’t fixed itself._

"Okay," Katniss said, dragging her hands down the side of her legs as she stood up. "I'm going to go tell Tony and Cap that Loki's making his play today, and you're doing—what exactly are you doing again?"

"Staying in here so Fury doesn't die a slow painful death," Clint grumbled irritably.

"Okay, besides that?"

Clint shook his head. "I need a minute, Kat. Loki's brain play did me in and I just need to regroup." He could see the worried look on Katniss' face, quickly scrambling to correct himself. "You're fine, I just…some cold water to the face, few deep breaths, I'll be good."

"Alright," Katniss said, still unsure. "You'll call for me if you need me though?"

"I went seventeen years without you; trust me, I plan on making up for lost time in any way I can." Shooting her a small smile, Clint gestured for her to go. She returned his smile as she headed out of his containment unit.

Making her way up to the bridge, Katniss felt a lot differently than she had a few hours prior. Spending time with Clint, even if it was only a few minutes, had proven to lift her spirits and leaving her feeling like a new version of herself. Instead, there was someone to fight with, someone to fight for. She craved so longingly for the family she had lost the very moment that mine had blown up, and she didn’t realize exactly how large of a hole it left in her until she learned Clint was her father and would fill that space. Life on her own was doable, but it wasn’t what she needed; she needed someone to be there, someone that knew her unlike anyone else, and that was Clint. They fed off of each other easily; she could already hear Tony's dynamic father daughter duos rolling off his tongue in her head.

The bridge was calm, still compared to how it had been every other day; it felt emptier even though everyone was accounted for. Fury was standing next to the meeting table, both hands resting on it as he hunched over. He looked a lot older than he was, and though there was room in her for where she ought to have felt pity, she didn’t feel anything. Another thing she and Clint seemed to have in common, something she took from him—no tolerance for bullshit and the people who dealt it out. Fury's head lifted as the sound of her boots clicked closer towards him. "Everdeen," he started, but Katniss held up one of her hands to stop him.

"Don't even bother," she snapped. "Where's Tony?"

"Do I look like Stark's keeper?"

"Not what I asked.” Her eyes flaming, she looked over to where Agent Hill was standing. "Agent Hill?" she tried.

Hill tapped a few things on one of the monitors, Katniss keeping her eyes on her closely. "He and Captain Rogers are down in Loki's containment unit," she read, her voice softer than usual. Katniss nodded in gratitude, preparing to turn off and walk away.

She stopped mid-turn, swiveling back around and walking right up to Fury. Her lip twitched as she raised up her hand, the anger surging through her thinking about all the hell he'd put her through. The crack as her palm met his face echoed out through the bridge, his eye never leaving hers. "Consider my service here finished," she growled, her voice dangerously low. She didn't waste another second standing there.

* * *

Steve and Tony looked almost as bad as she did, and that was simply the judgment she’d made from a distance. They were currently in what appeared to be a standoff; Tony's face alive with anger and his entire body rigid as the two of them stared the other down. She hated to interrupt such a vital moment in their bonding process, but she knew that there wasn't time to wait around for them to hug it out. Pressing her hand down on the scanner, a green light signaling 'access granted' lit up at her and the doors slid open. Both of the men were drawn away from their standoff, turning their attention over to her. "Got anything for us?" Tony asked after swallowing hard, looking rather nervous.

Katniss raised an eyebrow. "Baby bird? Really?"

"Doesn't classify as news, kid," Tony muttered, his cheeks tinged pink.

Katniss watched Steve as she spoke. "Loki's making his move today. Don't know where, don't know when, but we gotta do something."

"Yeah, us and what army?" Steve mumbled.

"We aren’t soldiers, Steve. But someone’s got to do something, who else is going to stop him?" Turning around to get some back up from her godfather after seeing Steve's gaping at her, she was greeted to a beaming Tony.

"That's my little Natasha," he praised, clapping a hand on her shoulder. Steve's face turned downwards in a frown; clearly, Tony had said something very similar to him only moments before. "Anything else?"

Katniss scratched the side of her neck. "Might want to steer clear of Fury for a while; the personal vendettas are stacking up against him. Any longer in his presence and someone’s going to snap." Tony started to laugh, but it quickly faded away. Her eyebrows furrowing together as Tony whirled past her deep in thought, she followed after him at a distance. "Tony…"

"Personal," he repeated. "Loki's making this personal."

"What point are you trying to make here?" Steve asked.

"I'm not; that's it.  _That's_  Loki's point. Taking Clint, the Helicarrier, everything he's done since his warped ass landed on Earth. He hit us all where we live, why?"

"To tear us apart," Katniss shrugged, watching Tony closely. "What're you on here?"

Tony began pacing, snapping his fingers. "He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us; he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"I caught his act in Stuttgart," Steve added, and Tony nodded.

"Yeah, but that's just the previews, this is…this is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered—" For a brief moment, Katniss thought that Tony's tirade was the showing signs of oncoming insanity, but he stopped right in the middle of his train of thought.

"Well?"

"Son of a bitch. He’s taking his Broadway debut right to New York," Tony spat, before looking at Katniss. "We've got to leave now. Go suit up and be in the hangars in ten; you know how to fly one of those things." Katniss opened her mouth to protest, but Tony was already striding off. "Get Papa Bird too!"

"Are we supposed to trust him, Stark?" Steve called after him.

"Yes," Katniss interrupted, giving Steve a stern look. "We do." With that, she turned on her heel and stomped off. She couldn’t help to remain pissed with Steve; he’d certainly made it easy for her, running behind her back like everyone else had. It had felt like betrayal, him keeping secrets despite knowing how badly she wanted the answer, so she was planning to treat it as such. She hurried back down to Clint's containment unit, trying to make sure that she got there before another one of the medics did to check in on him or ask questions, like why was he no longer chained to his bed and running free. By the time she'd made it down to the level where he was being kept, she was in a full on sprint.

Katniss reached his room, only to be treated with the sight of the cell being empty from the window. She slapped her hand down on the scanner, peeling it off only once she was halfway through the doorway. Clint was in the small washroom connected to the unit, wiping off his hands with a towel. He looked up at her, facial features scrawled on with concern. "Seen a ghost?"

"What?"

"Never mind," Clint shook his head. "Did you talk to Stark?"

Katniss nodded. "Yeah, and we're kind of in big trouble. Loki’s taking his circus to New York and we’ve got to move now, since no one else is busting their ass to get there. Not to mention my crash course in flying a Quinjet only lasted twenty minutes, and it was for copiloting, so at the rate we’re going..."

Clint's response was in the form of a shrug. "I know how to fly one," he said nonchalantly, and Katniss let out a sigh of relief.

"Jack of all trades, aren’t we?” she mumbled, a smirk on her face. "Get ready, we've got to be at the hangars in ten, and I still have to go get my bow." Clint's face appeared to light up at the sound of that as he dropped the towel, ready to move.

"What are we waiting for then?"

Clint followed Katniss out of the room, stepping up so he was walking alongside her through the corridors of the Helicarrier. "So," he began, cutting through the silence. "When did you learn how to shoot?"

"I was a kid. My dad in Twelve was a hunter too, we had to illegally kill game out in the woods if we wanted a decent meal." Katniss casually glanced up at Clint, who looked like he was about to punch a hole in the wall. Guess Fury never did tell him all the hyper-details in the plan. She quickly stumbled back on track. "He uh, died when I was twelve, and he'd shown me a little bit of how to use a bow. Gale was the one who taught me how to hunt. It was my key to survive," she explained.

"So you had to hunt for your own food when you were twelve?"

"I didn't start hunting my own food until I was at least thirteen; Gale used snares while he trained me and we'd share whatever the snare caught," she corrected. "Why, what are you thinking?"

"Oh, nothing," Clint said, his voice strangled. "Just trying to think of how many different ways I could kill a bald man with an eye patch with my foot alone."

They made it to the artillery room, Clint reaching forward and placing his hand on the access pad. The doors slid open, revealing quite an impressive array of weapons. "Wow," Katniss breathed out, looking around. Clint smiled.

"SHIELD's got no shortage of firepower, that's for sure. What they _do_ have a shortage of is intelligence, which ironically enough, is what they need a lot more of," he mused, making his way back through the shelves of guns to where they kept the bows stored. "I take it you’re KE?"

"Yes," she replied, stepping forward to grab the bow he'd extended to her. It was nice to have a bow of her own back in her hands; she'd seemed to be using everyone else's, but not the one that Coulson had gotten fitted especially for her.  _Coulson._ That wound was still very much open and very painful, and she physically winced as she thought back to that one and only conversation between the two of them.  _You know who you are. Give it a little time; you will._ It seemed like everyone around her knew herself better than she did. At least now she was making progress, or at least, that was what she was telling herself.

She was shaken out of whatever trance she'd gone into by Clint nudging her with a quiver of arrows. Jumping slightly as the quiver hit her elbow, she calmed down once her eyes met Clint's. She gave him a grateful smile, taking it and slinging it over her shoulder. Clint already had his strapped to his back, bow resting in his hand as he pointed to the arrows. "Alright, so I doubt you have experience with these, and I _very_ seriously doubt Fury's given you access to them, but these are custom combat arrows. You've got some exploding arrowheads, some regular ones, and I made sure that there's a grappling hook on the twelfth arrow just in case you need it. You don't have a lot, so prepare to reuse them," he explained.

"You really think it's going to come down to killing?" she whispered. Clint's face softened as the realization that she was still getting over her last murder stunt was settling inside of him. He reached out, grabbing both of Katniss' shoulders.

"Whatever happened earlier, you can't wear it on your face, you can’t let it hold you back. This is all a game to Loki, and he’ll play it to his advantage if you wear it like a target on your back. I know you want to take it back, we’ve all got shit we want to erase, but you can’t. Shake it off, put it behind you. You can deal with it later; right now we have to keep moving forward if we want to win." Katniss couldn't find any words left inside of her, so she just nodded. Clint gave one of her shoulders a reassuring squeeze before looking around. "Alright, let's get out of here."

The two of them headed out of the artillery room, on their way to the hangars when they just so happened to run into Steve and his star-spangled getup. Steve's eyes widened when he saw the two of them, but didn't say anything as he fell in time with their pace. "You must be Captain Rogers," Clint finally said, his voice rough.

Steve nodded. "Agent Barton, a pleasure. I think."

Katniss gave Steve a look from behind his back, opening her mouth. "He’s flying the Quinjet for us; where's Tony?" she asked, voice sharp enough to cut glass.

"He's taking the suit; he claims it flies faster," Steve replied.

"Whatever floats Stark's boat," Clint mumbled as they entered the hangars. Clint pointed to a Quinjet which had the launch ramp down and best of all, appeared unoccupied. "Take that one."

The three of them strode over to the Quinjet, walking onto the launch ramp right about the time one of the pilots realized that they were on ship. Katniss and Clint both began to hang up their bows as the pilot jumped out of his seat, rushing to stop them. He couldn't have been much older than Katniss by the looks of it. "You guys aren't authorized to be in here," he stammered, while Katniss pushed past him to get into the copilot's seat.

As she took down her headset from its hook and began to quickly plait her hair so it was out of her face, she couldn't help but to chuckle at Steve's response to that. "Son," he said. "Just don't." The sounds of the pilot's boots clanking on the cargo ramp grew fainter as he scuttled off. Steve turned around to where Katniss was currently sitting, tying off her braid. "Wait, you're coming with us?"

"Well I’m not staying here with Fury,” she retorted, slipping her headset on. Clint moved past Steve to get into the pilot's seat, reaching up and flipping several switches as Steve tried to get to her.

"No, no way, this is  _way_  too dangerous—"

"Stop," Katniss said, cutting him off as she spun around in her seat. "You need me out there. I can handle this, despite what you may think."

Steve looked over at Clint for some sort of help. "You’re not going to fight against this?"

Clint shrugged as he started to close up the cargo ramp. "If she says she’s got it, I believe her," he said, shooting a smile over at Katniss.

"Tin man to baby bird, you copy?" Tony's voice rang out in Katniss' headset, and she rolled her eyes at his nonsensicality.

"Not repeating that, but yeah, I do."

"Where are you guys?" Tony asked. "I'm floating out here waiting on you."

"We’re pulling out now," Clint said, the Quinjet slowly rolling out of the hangar and onto the landing strips. "Takeoff in three."

"Next stop, New York," Katniss muttered to herself.

* * *

Tony had jetted off past them when they'd first taken off, so he was nowhere in sight among the clouds. Thankfully, Clint knew where he was going, and didn't seem to need any of Katniss' help, so she was able to sit back and take a breather. Steve was sitting in the back of the Quinjet, minding his own business. They'd shut off communication with Tony for the time being; he'd started singing to himself and no one was in the mood for Tony Stark: The Musical.

"Clint?" Katniss asked, breaking through the silence in the Quinjet. Clint raised an eyebrow as response, taking his eyes off of the sky. "When you two…gave me up, did you know the details about where I was going to end up? Who I was going to be assigned to?”

Clint shook his head. "Nope, completely randomized. They worked undercover for SHIELD, so they were on the roster. Natasha wanted it to be completely random and as off the grid as possible; the less chance of you ever being discovered by our enemies, the better. Don't think she realized you'd be heading off to the 1800's though," he grumbled bitterly.

"What, you would have prevented it if you had known the specifics?" Katniss asked.

"Not necessarily. We loved you, but keeping you wasn’t an option if we wanted to keep you safe. She was already on the fence about keeping the pregnancy to start; once she decided she was carrying through with it, she was pretty clear that that was where she stopped. We couldn’t raise you, with our jobs, the targets on our back. Your safety was our number one priority, specifics be damned."

"And what about…you know, her death?"

"It was…complicated," Clint sighed. "We’d been undercover for weeks trying to bust a weapons dealer in Budapest. It was going okay, but we didn’t know how close to the end we were. One night, she goes out to recon an accomplice we’re set to befriend and the next morning, she’s nowhere. I threw the mission, looked everywhere for that woman. Fury had to pull me out against my will, he knew I’d stay there until I found her or got killed in the process. She’d been MIA too long, had to declare her killed in action after no sign of her after a few months."

"So what are you saying?"

Clint looked over at Katniss briefly, his eyes dark. "She was _reported_ dead. They never found a body."

Steve and all his impeccable timing decided to interrupt the moment with his suddenly functioning mouth. "Uh, guys?" The both of them looked back in his direction, only to see him pointing up ahead and out the window.

They had finally arrived in New York; it had been entirely off her radar living in Twelve, but the things she’d heard on the Helicarrier certainly didn’t live up to the reality. New York was building after building, all of them tall and cramped into as little space as possible, currently erupting in a disarray of chaos. Katniss stared out the window in horror as her eyes fixated on the wormhole that Loki had succeeded in opening, things descending from the hole in the sky. "Holy shit," she whispered, unsure of anything else to say.

"No kidding," Clint replied, just as stunned. It didn't take him long to move past the shock value, snapping straight into gear. "Cap, buckle up, we’re swinging through uptown since we’ve got the big guns. Kat, get our communications back up with Tony and our weapons online."

Katniss nodded, beginning to punch in buttons before she could hear the comm unit crackle in her ear. "Tony, we're heading up north-east."

"What, did you stop for drive thru?" Tony growled bitterly in her ear.

“Drive thru?” Katniss questioned, and Clint rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Stark, we stopped at the giant floating restaurant in the sky.”

"Whatever, just swing up park, I'm laying them out for you." Clint nodded at Katniss, motioning for her to lower the giant gun in the belly of the Quinjet. They swerved around an enormous building, aliens suddenly flying at them from every angle possible.

"Ugly bastards,” Clint growled as Katniss began firing at them, watching as the Chitauri space crafts started bursting into flames in midair. They seemed to keep coming; they were pouring out of the portal up on Stark Tower. If this was Loki's idea of a show, he was definitely putting on one. "What's our plan, Cap?"

"Head up Stark Tower, I think I see Loki standing out there," Cap called from the back. Clint jeered the Quinjet up towards Stark Tower, where Loki was currently looking out over the city. He was wearing that ridiculous helmet of his that looked like giant golden antlers, and Katniss couldn't help snort as she started firing at him as well. Clint sent a thin lipped smile over in her direction.

What they weren't expecting was for Loki to raise his scepter, blasting a stream of energy towards them and knocking out their engines. "Was this a part of your plan?" Katniss yelled as the engines failed out on them, sputtering and causing everything in the jet to fall backwards. Clint was beside her, pressing every button that he could think of, hoping that one of them would at least save them from a brutal landing.

"Not really!" Steve called back.

"Hang on, we're crash landing!" Clint gritted his teeth, pulling back hard on the controls as they nosedived, plummeted straight for the ground. Katniss couldn't do anything but brace herself.


	15. a flaw in the plan

Katniss had never even been in a car crash before, much less a plane crash, so to say that the experience was a new one was a bit of an understatement. She pushed herself back into her seat to brace their landing as best she could as the Quinjet skidded along the pavement. The touchdown was rough; the jet slid forward on the ground and slinging up the concrete along with it. They jostled around as Clint pulled back on the breaks, the engines giving one last sputter before dying. Finally the jet came to a halt, Katniss' back hitting the seat again.

"Everyone okay?" Clint asked as he began to quickly undo the safety belt holding him, Katniss tossing her headset off before following suit.

"I'm fine," she breathed. "Cap?"

"Still alive!" he called, Katniss clambering out of her seat to retrieve her bow and quiver. Steve was pulling his shield off of the racks, throwing Katniss her bow. She caught it in midair, staring at him slightly puzzled. "We need to get out there and help Stark and Thor."

"Wait, Thor's out there too?" Katniss asked, strapping her quiver onto the back of her suit. She hadn't remembered seeing the god of thunder out there, but then again, compared to all the aliens descending from the hole in the sky over Stark Tower, Thor and his red cape weren’t the most obvious detail. Steve nodded.

"He’s with Loki," Clint responded, grabbing his bow from the racks and snapping it out into its full form. Katniss watched it, slightly amazed that a bow was even capable of doing something like that. His fist pounded against the ramp's access button, the ramp lowering out for them. Katniss could hear the madness before she saw it, and the sight accurately matched the noise that went with it once her eyes flitted across the landscape. Loki's Chitauri were zipping past on their little aircrafts, jets of blue light flashing at cars and buildings. The smoke that was already drifting in the air wasn't heavy, but considering the number of small fires already started, she imagined it was only going to grow thicker.

Steve was the first one on the ground, all of them jogging out of their now useless Quinjet. "Come on!" he yelled. They ran around the rubble from their crash, getting out onto the streets. There were a few people who were running past them, car alarms going off and of course, the aliens above them randomly firing shots from the air. "We've gotta get back up there."

They began sprinting down an avenue, the building at the far end reading 'GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL'. Cars were overturned and on fire, people sprinting in the opposite direction as they tried to get out of the way. There was a loud grumbling sort of sound coming from the sky, all of their heads looking upwards at the wormhole as they stopped in their tracks.

"Holy shit," Katniss uttered out as what appeared to be a large head came into sight and began to emerge from the portal. Whatever it was, it was enormous and ugly. The only thing that she could think that it remotely reminded her of it was a large, flying snake. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Clint stiffen at the sight of it. It swooped down the length of the Stark Tower behind several Chitauri, flying over their heads. As she watched on in horror, what seemed to be more hitchhiking aliens inside of the giant snake, propelling themselves out of the slots in the sides and landing on the buildings nearby.

"Leviathan," Clint whispered under his breath, and Katniss' head snapped over to where he was, away from watching the Chitauri crash into windows and the rest of the tail flying on past them. He shrugged one of his shoulders. "A large sea monster or creature; it’s a slave, the Chitauri probably use it for transportation."

Steve wasn't listening to their conversation. "Stark, you seeing this?" he said.

"Seeing, still…working on believing," Tony replied in the comm. "Where's Banner, has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?"

"He fell out of the sky," Katniss finally said.

"Just keep me posted," Tony said before disappearing from their comm link.

Katniss looked over at Steve. "He’s kidding, right?" she asked, puzzled. "Banner’s not coming, it’s just us."

Steve's eyes narrowed. "Are you always this pessimistic?"

"Are you always acting like you know everything?"

"Are you two done?" Clint snapped. "In case you haven't noticed, we're kind of in the middle of a battle ground." He gestured around at them, where the Chitauri were currently scaling down the surrounding buildings with loud, painful shrieking noises. Katniss opened her mouth to respond, but to prove even more of his point, several of the Chitauri started to fire at them.

Katniss kept her eyes on Steve, watching the expression in his face change before he darted off. "Steve!" she called after him, exasperated. Clint put a hand on Katniss' back, guiding her behind a cab and kneeling down with her. "Where the hell is he going?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Clint replied, his eyes flitting around the scene in front of them. "Doesn’t matter, he’s not the problem. They are." He stood up to look around them, calling over his shoulder. "We already got a few on the ground and there are people on that flipped bus."

"They’re right in the line of fire," Katniss said as Clint bent back down beside her. "What’s the plan?"

Steve reappeared from wherever he'd run off to, kneeling down beside them. "We got civilians trapped over there," Clint told him over the sounds of the aliens firing, a fleet of the Chitauri's flying chariots zipping past them. Katniss' eyes followed them, spotting the glint of a familiar golden horned helmet even going at dozens of miles an hour.

"Loki," Steve muttered under his breath, his gaze focused on the destruction below that Loki had caused when he and the chariots following him had flown through. "There are people down there that need assistance."

Katniss looked at Clint, who had moved over to an adjacent car for cover. "We can handle this, right?" Clint nodded. "It's good. Go."

"You think you can hold 'em off?" Steve glanced at Clint.

"Captain," he said, pressing a button on his quiver that launched it into rotation, locking an arrow in place. "It'd be my genuine pleasure." Katniss then watched as Clint then stood up, drawing an arrow and firing it at a Chitauri soldier. The arrow landed right in the middle of its head, falling backwards to the ground dead.

"Nice shot," Katniss exhaled, a grin on her face when Clint turned around to smirk at her. She followed in his footsteps, pulling an arrow from her own quiver and firing at one of the Chitauri to give Steve a chance to jump off the bridge and go help, like he always seemed to do. Katniss watched as the arrow embedded itself in the alien's chest, toppling over onto a cab.

"'Atta girl!" Clint yelled, beaming at her. "You can do this, keep 'em distracted while I get those people out of that bus!"

Katniss' sight followed him running in the direction of the Grand Central Terminal building, gaping. "And if I can't?"

"You can!"

Whipping back over her shoulder to see that two of the aliens had gotten closer to her, it was only one fluid motion of grabbing another arrow and sending it piercing through his skull. Before he fell, she remembered what Clint had told her about reusing arrows and pulled it from his skull, stabbing the other one who had raised his gun to fire at her. Katniss fell back slightly so she was closer to Clint, taking refuge behind a cab. Looking over shoulder to see him hoisting kids out of the bus, she called, "One arrow at a time isn’t working!"

"Fury taught you how to shoot a gun!"

"So?"

Clint pried open the door of the bus, grunting. "So shoot it!"

Awkwardly propping her bow against the cab, she yanked the gun out of its holster on her thigh and started firing at several of the Chitauri. A few shots ricocheted off their armor, Katniss managing to hit a few of them in the upper shoulder or neck. Aiming with a gun, she’d quickly learned, was much different than it was with her bow and arrow, especially when the targets were moving. Clint was at her side in no time, taking the gun out of her hands.

"Alright, never mind, I take that back. Pick the bow back up."

"Oh what, I'm not a good shot with a gun?" she retorted, picking up her bow once more and setting the gun on the hood of a cab.

"For someone who just learned? Yes. For someone who's aiming to kill, not a chance." Clint looked over his shoulder, firing one of his exploding arrowheads at a small band of soldiers.

"Yeah," Katniss mused as it exploded, killing the one it had hit and knocking a few of them unconscious. "Don't know if I'll be taking those for a joy ride today."

"When we live through this, I'm teaching you all the shit Fury was too scared to teach you."

"Apparently, I take after my father."

Letting an arrow fly from her bow, she looked over at Clint for a moment. His eyes met hers, a soft smile on his usual hardened face. "I’m glad you do."

Katniss couldn't help but notice how good of a team she and Clint made. They alternated shooting, each of their shots killing every time. She was sure if Tony was coming in on the comm, he'd be proudly praising their teamwork skills and how the baby bird had flown quite gracefully. Eventually though, she found that she was only down to a few more arrows. "Almost out."

Reaching behind him, Clint stuffed a few arrows from his own quiver into hers before stepping out from behind the cab, aiming at one of the Chitauri soldiers. "I’ll get your arrows, you hold them off."

"You're insane!" she yelled.

"Not necessarily!"

Shaking her head at Clint, she moved away from the cab. One of the Chitauri sent a blast of energy her way and she had to duck and roll right out of its way. Katniss found herself with an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu of her training sessions back on the Helicarrier as she sunk one of her arrows into its chest. She kept firing a few more shots at the group of them surrounding her, trying not to make every shot count. The Chitauri that had tried to shoot her had dropped its rifle, and she picked it up with her free hand.  _What the hell, why not._  As an approaching Chitauri got too close, she pressed her finger down on the surface and ran it up the length of the staff in hopes that she'd find the trigger. Her confirmation came in the form of a surge of energy hurtling towards the soldier, knocking him down like a domino. "These things work like a gun!" she called to Clint.

"You have any better aim with them?" he teased, throwing her another arrow.

She heard the sound of someone landing on the ground behind her, and whipping around with her bow aimed at the source, she lowered it only slightly to see that it was Steve. “Really?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Do you even need to know the answer to that?"

Clint returned several arrows to Katniss in their very brief moment of peace before the three of them returned right back to fighting at the new wave of Chitauri. Clint and Katniss were both sending arrows flying at the Chitauri, Steve blocking all of them off with his shield. It was effective, but not for a long period of time. The aliens kept jumping from the walls or landing down on the ground near them from their aircrafts, their numbers gradually growing against them. Getting in a bit of a struggle with one of the Chitauri soldiers who had grabbed a hold on her bow, Katniss started to try and jam it back into the alien's throat and crush his trachea. The Chitauri had quite a grip on it though and sent her stumbling backwards, without her bow.

Clint's name on her lips, her mouth opened to call for some sort of help before a large surge of electricity—lightning—came down, a massive shockwave knocking all of the Chitauri down, leaving them lifeless. The loud thud on the ground was the signal of Thor's arrival. He bowed slightly when he saw Katniss, her nodding in response.

"Think this is yours," Steve said from behind her, holding her bow that she assumed he had pried out of the alien's hands. She took it from him hesitantly.

"Thanks," she replied.

Steve focused his attention on Thor. "What's the story upstairs?" he asked.

"The powers surrounding the cube are impenetrable," Thor said.

"Thor's right," Tony's voice crackled back over the comm. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"Welcome back, Stark," Katniss taunted.

"Baby bird’s found her wings, I see."

"How are we supposed to do this?" Katniss asked, looking around at all of the dead aliens surrounding them. They'd killed off a good few, but there were still hundreds of them zipping around New York.

"As a team," Steve replied.

Thor piped up. "I have unfinished business with Loki."

"Oh yeah?" Clint retorted, cleaning off one of the arrows that he'd just pulled from between a Chitauri's eyes. "Get in line."

Always one to sense tension, Steve cut in. "Save it. Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him, these things run wild." Katniss was no longer interested in what he was saying, her eyes having trailed off and landing on the approaching figure. "We've got Stark up top, he's gonna need us to…" Steve's voice trailed off as he too heard the sputtering of a motorcycle approach from behind them. Sure enough, it was Bruce, who looked like he'd already been fighting even though he just arrived. He pulled on the breaks, balancing himself as he turned it off, the rest of them walking over to him. Clint looked over at Katniss, and Katniss gave a curt nod in response.

Banner leaned the bike up against a car, meeting them halfway. "So," he started, hands falling by his sides. "This all seems…horrible." Ever the optimist, Bruce.

"I've seen worse," Katniss mumbled dryly.

Bruce's eyes glanced over to her, the expression solemn. She could see in his eyes that he wasn't proud over what had happened between the two of them on the Helicarrier, and his reply of, "Sorry about that," was more of a mumble than anything. Katniss however, wasn't finished talking.

"I think we could use a little worse now," she mused, giving him a half smile. Bruce seemed to contemplate that thought as Steve finally spoke up.

"Stark, we got him."

"Banner?" Tony's voice rang out in her comm link.

"Just like you said."

"Tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you." No sooner had the words left his mouth did Tony appear, whipping around a building. It didn't take long for the Leviathan to bust the side of the building out as he followed in pursuit. Typical Tony; get the thing's attention and spend the rest of the time running from it. Bruce was looking over his shoulder at the sight and Katniss could see Steve swallow hard at the sight of it. Thor growled, readjusting his hammer in his fist as Katniss just stared at Tony and the Leviathan both racing towards them. They were coming in and coming in fast.

"Don’t…really see how that’s a party," she stammered out, trying to take it all into account. The lower the Leviathan got to the ground, the louder the sound of cars being decimated and the road being torn up got. Katniss watched as Bruce slowly started walking towards the impending ship, almost like he had all the time in the world. "Bruce…"

Steve stepped up behind him. "Dr. Banner? Now might be a really good time for you to get angry." He was right; Tony was zipping towards them and the Leviathan was right on his tail, the two of them not much farther from where they were all standing.

Bruce looked over his shoulder, smirking. "That's my secret, Captain," Bruce said before stopping in the middle of his tracks. "I'm always angry."

Katniss hadn't seen Bruce transform anything like this; it wasn't the same painful thing she'd watched back on the Helicarrier. He wasn't trying to suppress the beast, instead, it only took a split second for him to size up and out of the baggy clothes he'd been wearing, tearing them at the seams. Tony zipped upwards right out of the way as the Hulk slammed his fist into the Leviathan's head, holding it there as the Leviathan crashed into him. Katniss was unable to move out of the way as the rest of the body continued to build up and prepare to flip right over Banner and onto them. She could hear Tony yelling in their comms, "Hang on!"

Katniss watched as he shot a missile at it, but at that point the tail was already descending down to crash on them. Clint yelled in her direction, "Get down!" It didn't occur to her to dive out of the way like her father had, but instead she ducked down, Steve right behind her and putting the shield over them as Tony's missile detonated and the rest of the Leviathan exploded. She watched as the debris fell down around them, Steve slowly backing away and standing up.

She mirrored the motion, dusting off her pants with the hand that wasn't tightly gripping onto her bow. "Thanks," she muttered, and Steve shot her a tight-lipped smile in response.

All around them, the angry Chitauri that were still scaling down the walls were screeching and howling in anger, to which the Hulk roared back at them. As Katniss reached behind her to grab an arrow from her quiver, she saw Tony lowering down towards the ground next to Clint. Drawing the arrow back in her bow, she kept it ready to fly as they all looked around on the buildings at the aliens.

They all stood there for a moment, glancing around them at the city. Katniss' attention was almost immediately redirected when she heard the sound of something landing on top of a demolished cab, the rest of the group quickly turning around to see what was going on. Katniss had already aimed her bow and arrow at the cab expecting another Chitauri, now cautiously approaching ahead of all her teammates.

"I can’t  _believe_  you got the party started without me."


	16. liabilities

The bow clattered from her hand as Katniss stood there dumbfounded, trying to form a coherent thought in her head while she gaped at the sight in front of her. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, like it might bust out of her at any moment, the wind completely knocked out of her chest. Had Katniss not known any better, she would have turned around and asked if someone knew what the hell was going on, but she  _did_  know better, silently hoping that Steve was still a few steps behind her to catch her once she passed out.

"I mean  _seriously_ , I never even got an invite." Red hair brushing over her face as she jumped off the hood of the cab, she started making her way over to the group. Katniss felt like a fish out of water, gasping for the smoky air around her as a set of striking green eyes locked on hers.

Natasha stiffened, taking in the sight of Katniss. Katniss could feel her own body go rigid as Natasha's eyes went wide, the connection finally made. "You," she whispered, her teeth clenching together. Katniss didn't know if she wished she still had her bow in her hand or not, the look on Natasha’s face of pure murder. She could hear Steve slide forwards behind her, most likely ready to jump in front of her if he had to. Nothing could get through that shield, Natasha Romanoff hopefully included on the list. Natasha's eyes flicked over to where Tony was, her eyes narrowing into slits.

"Anthony Stark," she growled, and Tony's hands flew up into a position of mock arrest.

"I didn’t nab her, it was all Fury's fault!"

"Spoken like a coward."

"Tasha," Clint's voice finally appeared in the conversation, quieter but incredibly strangled. Katniss could tell that it had taken every last ounce of energy he had to push that out. "He's telling the truth. It was Nick." Katniss looked over her shoulder to see that Clint's eyes were somewhat glassy before whipping back around to face Natasha. Her eyes were dark, still feral.

She slacked off a little, but she didn't stop her approach to Katniss. Katniss was shaking the entire time, biting down so hard on her lip that she could feel blood pooling there. Natasha was standing only a few inches away from her, Katniss not daring to move as she kept her eyes trained on her mother. She could see that Natasha's features had softened slightly, giving her the capability to see that what that picture in the SHIELD file had hardly done showing their relation any justice. They had the same facial shape and structure, the shape of their eyes was the same, details as small as the light freckles dusting over their complexion matching up. Katniss' lip quivered as Natasha reached out mechanically, resting a hand on the side of her face. Her touch was delicate and light, and a single tear rolled down Katniss' face as she stood there, still frozen.

It was silent around with the exception of the car sirens and explosions echoing in the distance as Natasha just kept her hand on Katniss' cheek. "You were dead," she finally choked out, her voice thick with emotion.

"Reported dead," Natasha clarified. "Surely you knew as much."

Katniss' eyebrows knitted together. "How?"

"Stark is good at doing more than just staring at his reflection in the mirror." It took a moment for it to settle in Katniss' head, not sure what she meant by that. One of Natasha's eyebrows lifted knowingly, and then it clicked.

Spinning around on her heel, her eyes locked in on Tony. "You…you knew?" Her voice was watery, pained with emotion. "Of course you did, you always know." Her eyes flitted over to Clint, whose hand was by his side, shaking with fury. She could see he was physically restraining himself as point, trying to keep from snapping and lunging for his throat. Tony had written his own death sentence, right after Fury’s.

"I wanted to tell you, both of you; I did. I almost slipped that day when I called you and our residential star-spangled senior citizen the next Clint and Natasha, and not just because I thought you knew about her either. I almost slipped when Coulson stopped by to recruit me." The sound of the Iron Man's head turning to look over at Natasha before Tony admitted sheepishly, "Yeah, I almost blew it a lot."

"What I figured."

"I did my best with her, Romanoff, you know that. I’ve actually grown somewhat fond of her, ."

“I know.”

“So you _aren’t_ planning to kill me?”

“Let’s take things one step at a time,” Natasha warned. Katniss turned her attention away from Tony and back to Natasha, who was still staring at her closely. “Guess I can’t do too much about you being here now."

"No, guess you can't," Katniss replied shakily, to which both of Natasha's eyebrows rose at the sound of.

There was another rumbling sound and everyone's eyes looked upwards just to see more Leviathans pouring out of the wormhole. "What the hell is that?" Natasha's concerned voice rang out, the sound of a gun clicking.

"Here's your fifteen second recap: Loki, bad guy, trying to take over the world. Alien army, Chitauri, those big ugly bastards; we get to fight them all off. Mostly kill. Killing is mostly ideal in this situation."

"Sounds like a real rodeo," Natasha muttered dryly.

"Call it Cap," Tony said, disregarding Natasha's comment.

"Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, what we need is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash." The words rolled off of Steve's tongue smoothly as Katniss kept her eyes trained on Clint. For once, he looked hesitant, like there was something about this that he didn't want to do anymore. Like he was going to run off from the scene then and there, almost itching with anticipation. That didn’t seem like him; he was always still and steady, even on the adrenaline highs and under possession. His gaze was still locked on Natasha as Steve rambled on, and that's when it registered. He'd been looking for her for years without fail, forced to believe that she was dead and there she was. He didn't want to leave her side.

"Better clench up, Legolas," Tony mused, walking over to Clint and preparing to shoot up.

"No!" Katniss blurted out, to which almost every head turned in her direction at the sound of. "I'll do it," she insisted. "I’m a hunter, keeping watch is second nature."

"No, I need you here on the ground with me—"

"I'll go," Katniss' warning was soft as she walked over to where Tony was. He wasn't moving any, the glow of the suit's eye-holes staring back at her. She tilted her head in confusion. "Well? Are we going?"

"Right, right," Tony quickly returned, the back of his hand gripping onto Katniss' side and pulling her closer to him. "Hang on, kid." As they shot up in the air, Katniss could see Steve's relatively disappointed face, but she knew what she'd had to do. Clint and Natasha deserved a little time together, even if their lives were at risk. She figured they'd feel right at home then. She'd never been flying without being inside a jet before, and that was already a new experience, so to say that she'd gotten a kick of adrenaline from the air whirling past her as they jetted off through the city.

They zipped right past the building that Steve had wanted Clint on, Katniss' face scrunching in confusion. "Where are we headed?" she called over the wind.

Even though he was right in front of her, she could hardly hear his voice except through the comm link. "Since you decided to volunteer, I'm putting you somewhere where  _I_  can make sure you're okay. Now that she's risen from the grave, if one hair of your head is out of place, I'll be mounted above her door." He paused for a moment, before continuing, "Also, if you're going to be right in the center of it all, you might need a few more arrows."

Dodging the Chitauri's shots, they zoomed right past the decimated Quinjet that she felt as though she hadn't seen it in years. Tony yelled something that sounded like, 'hold on!' as he flew straight inside and landed. "You only have fifteen seconds to steal away Robin Hood's backup loot, no pressure or anything," he casually shouted over his shoulder as he began to hold off some of the Chitauri who had noticed their arrival. Katniss reached over, her fist slamming into a button that opened up a storage unit. In it rested a whole other set of arrows, not covered in various forms of bodily fluids from the Chitauri.

Her head whipping over her shoulder, she could see Tony's thrusters were only doing so much and that they had to get out of there. A few of the Chitauri's shots slipped past Tony and went straight for her head. Her knees hit the floor with a loud bang, throbbing slightly as she bent down to avoid getting hit. Grabbing two fistfuls off arrows and jamming them into her quiver as quickly as she could, she was back at Tony's side in an instant.

"Good under pressure; no wonder the star-spangled senior citizen likes you," Tony pondered right before they jetted off once again. Katniss opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead, her throat was filled with a gust of wind from their ascent. She could feel her cheeks burning.

They finally made it up to Stark Tower, and Katniss was hesitant at first. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"If I wasn't, do you think I'd be bringing you up here?"

"Yeah."

"Good point."

Her feet landed on the surface of where she assumed Tony's high-tech gauntlet that dissembled the Iron Man suit was, Tony giving her a pat on the back. "I've got faith in you, little Natasha."

" _Anthony_!" Natasha's screech came in through the comm, and Katniss couldn't help but to smirk up at her godfather.

"Just keep your eyes in front of you, not below or up. Preferably on me so that way I don't get eaten by one of Loki's pet snakes?" he continued, Katniss nodding. "Good luck." Tony was gone before she could respond that luck had nothing to do with it.

* * *

"What the hell do you mean Fury just _nabbed_ her?" came Natasha's voice over the sound of gunfire. "He wasn't even supposed to keep tabs on her, which was why I had Stark!"

Clint gritted his teeth, sending an arrow flying directly between the eyes of a Chitauri. "Yeah, tell me again why you entrusted  _Tony Stark_  with all the details? When you met him, he was literally self-destructing!"

"People can change, you know that."

"People, yes; Tony Stark, don’t think that’s possible."

Natasha continued to empty her clips, not missing a single mark. To say that she was furious was probably an understatement, and she was using the situation to work out her anger. Only taking her eyes off of the band of aliens that continued to try and advance on her and Clint for a moment, his gaze met her as he shot another arrow without looking. Sure enough, it buried itself in another one of the Chitauri. "Everything I did was to keep her safe."

"I know that, so did Fury."

"So why the hell did he go and fucking recruit her?"

Clint sighed in exasperation, reaching behind him into his quiver. "I don't know Natasha; I'm still trying to figure that out myself. He claims it was because he was down the two of us and that he needed some sort of insurance to fall back on in case it came down to, well, this."

"What kind of fucking  _compensation_  is that!?"

"Believe me, I asked him the same thing myself. As I tried not to kill him."

"What happened to you?" Natasha's voice wasn't as tough or as irritated as it had been, as she picked up one of the energy rifles that one of the Chitauri had dropped as they collapsed over dead.

"What do you mean?"

"You said that Fury was down both of us. That insinuates something happened to you too."

"Not now—"

"Clint—"

"I said not now, Nat!" Clint growled as he took one of his arrows, jamming it directly into a Chitauri's throat that he had thrashing underneath his foot on the ground. "Right now, try to not get yourself actually killed."

Natasha shot him a teasing smile as she fired the energy rifle, blasting an alien backwards. "You really have no faith in me, Barton."

* * *

Having a bird's eye view from the top of Stark Tower wasn't necessarily a bad thing, if one were to overlook the fact that it was over fifty stories up in the sky. Katniss didn't mind the whole being alone aspect of it; it gave her a little time to reflect on everything that had happened, which in truth, was partially the reason she'd offered to go instead of Barton. She didn't really know how well she'd handle being around Natasha, especially after their stiff start—maybe that was mostly Natasha being herself, Katniss wasn't sure. What she did know was that she had to do this thing as closed off as possible, and that wasn't possible if she was staring her mother, who everyone had told her was dead, right in the eye.

Shooting the Chitauri riders from a vantage point was surprisingly relaxing. It reminded her vaguely of when she would sit around and shoot at trees in the woods after school whenever she got the chance. She had no real method of taking them out; whenever she saw one of their chariots zip past her line of sight, she targeted them, only firing after another if it came too close or wasn’t suspecting her shot. It was a way of making sure she didn't run out of arrows too soon. Clint's fancy exploding arrowheads had proved to be an enormous help in taking out more than just one chariot, leaving her space in between each shot as well. Katniss understood why Tony had told her to keep her eyesight level; if she looked up, she'd be treated to the sight of more Chitauri soldiers and Leviathans pouring out of the wormhole, and if she looked down, she'd see the full effects of the dizzying height she was at. It was better to keep her eyes level.

She had been keeping an eye out for Loki as well; his horned-helmeted self had to be somewhere amidst all the madness, and if she could take him out—for Clint, for Coulson, for Gale—she'd consider it her own personal victory. She wanted to be the one to sink the first arrow into his chest. As she scanned over the city, she could see Tony's suit zipping around several buildings, a small train of Chitauri behind him. "Tony, you have a few ducks in your row," she said.

"Just try and keep them off the streets," he muttered.

"And I'm supposed to do that how, exactly? They can't bank worth a damn. Swing by Natasha and Clint, they'll get them for you. Thor's looking mighty bored on his end too."

"How do you have that good of eyesight?" Tony asked as she kept her eyes following his suit down below the Grand Central Terminal. Sure enough, as he brought the trail behind him over, Clint fired a few arrows and Natasha was able to use what Katniss believed to be the energy rifle and take most of the ships out of the air.

"You get used to it," she responded, drawing her bow and stringing in an arrow as he swung upwards to zip past where she was on the tower. "What, bringing the party to me now?" Her teeth grinding together as she waited for him to go flying over her head, she counted to three before letting the arrow loose. It landed right on the Chitauri aircraft as Tony passed her level of sight, exploding in the middle of the air only seconds later.

"We can't leave you out of the fun too, baby bird," he crooned teasingly into the comm. "You got anything else for me?"

She panned out over the skyline, spotting a brilliantly red speck out in the distance. "Thor's taking on a squadron down…somewhere. Out northeast," she drawled.

"Roger that."

Tony disappeared, off to assist Thor. Chewing on her lower lip as she reached behind her to draw an arrow, she realized that there was no arrowhead attached to it. A low sigh escaped her, realizing she'd have to put one on herself. Now wasn't really the time, with more and more aliens coming out of the portal. Bending her arm backwards behind her back, she felt around in the lower compartment of the fancy quiver SHIELD provided, her fingers trying to pinpoint an arrowhead. She could feel the cool metal of one, attempting to see if she could feel for the small ridge in the design that signaled it was explosive. There wasn't any indentation, but it was also the first one her fingers had touched, so she pinched it between her thumb and index finger and pulled it out. Taking her eyes off of the skies, she fastened it onto the end of the arrow. Right as the time she pulled back the arrow in preparation to fire, she heard a bang on the gauntlet behind her.

Whipping around, she was treated to the sinister smile colored on Gale's face and the barrel of a gun looking her right in the eyes. "So, we meet again."

"Gale," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking as she raised the bow slightly.

In her ear, the comm was already going off. "Katniss? Katniss, what's going on?" came Tony's unusually serious voice.

"Put the bow down, Katniss."

"When you lower that gun."

Gale clucked his tongue in disapproval. "I'm afraid that I can't do that."

"Neither can I."

Katniss was desperately trying to ignore the shouting in her ear, her team calling her name over and over again as she kept her eyes trained on Gale. He nodded slowly, pretending to ponder that thought. Katniss' eyes narrowed as she tried to read his expression, drawing a blank. He was still trapped under Loki's spell, and she could only assume that it had gotten worse with time. She'd seen what it had done to Clint. "You're under a spell, Gale," she tried. "This isn't you. This is Loki, this is…monsters and magic, we’re out of our league."

She could hear the gun click, his finger hovering over the trigger. "Gale, you're not going to shoot me. It's me. It's Katniss."

"Begging isn't going to spare your life," Gale snarled. "Didn't you learn anything being one of Fury's personal flying monkeys? Talking me down won't save you."

"Katniss, what's he doing to you? Answer me!" Steve's angry voice rang out in her ear, and she bit down on her lip to keep from responding.

Gale sneered. "Is that your boyfriend calling you?" he laughed darkly. "Does he not know no one winds up with you in the end? After I'm done with you, I think I’ll lure him up here, let him get a look of you before I off him myself."

"You're not a murderer, Gale!"

"But you are," he replied, and Katniss' body went stiff as he slowly started to advance in on her. "I can see it there in your eyes, you killed someone back on that ship. You broke the code; traded out animals for people and out of what? Revenge?  You’re no better than me, Catnip. It takes a murderer to know another. And this…this is where it all comes to an end. For you.” 

Gale was practically standing on top of her, the gun in his hands only a few inches away from her. Taking a deep breath, she found the courage to look him right in his glazed-over blue eyes. He wasn't himself and Katniss knew that as her eyes flitted back down only momentarily to see his finger hovering over the trigger. "Not today," she hissed, before shooting him in the arm.

He howled in pain as she reached up to knock the gun out of his hands. It fell over the edge of the tower, landing beneath them a few feet down on the bottom deck of the Tower. Gale looked up at her, feral look in his eyes. It was on. Ripping the arrow out of his arm and letting it clatter to the ground on the gauntlet, Katniss couldn't help but to wince at the blood dribbling down his arms. "Bitch," he snarled before lunging at her.

Knocking the bow out of her hands, Gale dove on top of her and sent the two of them rolling across the gauntlet. She knew that while it was a good bit in distance as well as width, it wasn't going to be enough. If they even went an inch too far, they were dead. The two of them were thrashing about for dominance; it was a fight to the death after all. Gale had a great deal of weight and body size on her, but Katniss was smaller and more agile. She'd also been able to take out a master assassin and a super soldier at one point; she had that to her advantage as well. He managed to pin her down, leaning forward and clocking her right in the eye. She moaned in pain, his hands encircling her neck easily with a wicked grin.

Everyone was talking over each other in her ear on the comm link, mostly panic on Clint and Steve's end. Natasha was barking for Tony to get his ass up in the air, to which he had replied that he was slightly busy at the moment—most likely fighting off a small group of aliens himself. Telling them that she was in trouble was not an option; they probably knew that she was currently tangled up in a situation, but she couldn't draw them away from the fight. It was what that Loki wanted, and she’d take her chances dying before she gave him what he wanted.

She was kicking, struggling, doing anything she could, but he was slowly squeezing the air right out of her all as he laughed. "This is pathetic," he growled. " _You_  are pathetic." Loki's words echoed in her head and she remembered that this wasn't Gale, this was Loki. Regardless, Gale was causing black spots to come up in her sight, and she wasn't about to go like this.

Letting out a frustrated, mangled groan, she locked her legs around him and managed to flip them over. Wasting no time at all, she scrambled off of him, dashing for her bow. Her arms were covered in blood from where his arm had rubbed up against hers, and her guess was that her neck was the same. Hands shaking, she grabbed her bow and strung an arrow. By the time she had it poised in his direction, he'd already moved to the very edge of the gauntlet, his hands positioned in mock arrest. It was deadly quiet around them, as though they were in their own world.

"You won't do it," he whispered, laughing softly. "You can't kill me."

"Gale, let me help you," she pleaded.

"Don't you get it? You can't help me! You can't save me!" he roared in frustration. "It's you or me."

"It's never that  _simple—"_

_"You won’t do it!"_

Katniss had always been one who was never going to back down from someone giving her a challenge. Gale had been her challenger over the years, working his way into her head and edging her to push herself to the limits, prove herself. Even with Loki controlling him, now was no different. She fell prey to her old habits, the need to prove herself, not even realizing what she’d done until the string bounced back from the release of her arrow. Her arm fell swiftly from instinct as she watched on in horror. She'd shot Gale right in the thigh, which hadn’t been enough to do any serious damage. It was the fact that he had probably been expecting a shot directly to his chest or in between the eyes that was the real problem. He'd stumbled back slightly at the impact of it, and there was no more surface of the gauntlet to catch him. Katniss' eyes were wide as she saw him teeter over, falling off the edge of the gauntlet. She couldn't bring herself to lean over and try to catch his arm; she was paralyzed by his haunted blue eyes that were locked onto her until he was completely out of sight.

She stood frozen, scared that if she dared to even roll her weight onto one leg, she'd die too.


	17. breathing thin air

Stark Tower was a tall building, without question, but Katniss felt like she was towering above the very clouds at the height she was at. She didn't dare move a muscle, her chest heaving as she desperately tried to force air down her lungs. It was simple, she couldn't  _breathe_. The world around her seemed to slow down entirely and she was completely trapped inside her head. She had just killed Gale. She had just killed the only friend she'd ever had. He was dead because of her.

The comm link in her ear was going haywire as everyone was jumping over themselves to get a word in to find out what was wrong. She was deathly silent, leaving them to think the worst. Natasha was firing expletive after expletive at Tony, who couldn't change the fact that he was still handling a group of Chitauri downtown. Being the only person who was able to calm her if there was any hope of it happening, Clint was trying to get Natasha to breathe and focus on the problem at hand. Steve of course, kept yelling in the comm for Katniss to say something, anything really; the only people who weren't driving her out of her mind on the comm were Thor and the Hulk, both of whom couldn't have gotten on there even if they tried.

"Katniss, what the  _hell—"_

"Answer us!"

"Natasha, you have got to calm down—"

Katniss was still frozen in place. Everything around her was spinning and she felt like if she moved even the slightest inch, she was going to fall off the tower. Her lungs felt as though they were any second away from caving in inside of her chest. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was screaming for herself to count her breaths, but that reminded her too much of Gale. Gale had given her that tip, and now he was dead. She could all but hear Loki laughing in her head. Her bow fell from her hands as she began scrambling backwards, desperate to get against something to reassure her fear of falling off the edge of the tower. It felt like there was a weight pressing down on her chest, crushing her from the outside. She fell down to her knees, sliding back against the glass paneling that served as one of Tony's giant floor to ceiling windows.

There was only one other time that she'd had a feeling like this, and it was back on the Helicarrier after she'd barely escaped with her life from her Hulk encounter. Which meant she was having yet another panic attack.

"C…Clint," she whispered hoarsely in the middle of a breath, hoping that it was loud enough that someone could hear her.

"Katniss? Katniss, are you there?" Clint's worried voice filled her ear, along with more shushing of everyone else that was talking over him. "Katniss, what's wrong?"

"Can't…I can't…"

"Hawkeye, we have to—"

"Natasha,  _not now_!" Clint roared. Natasha's voice fell silent on the other end, leaving only Clint. When he spoke up again, his voice was softer. "What? Katniss, you gotta talk to me."

The tears were rolling down her cheeks as she watched on in horror at the Chitauri riders that zipped past her, trying to find a way to convey her message into actual words. "Breathe…" she stuttered out. "Can't…c-can't breathe."

Her hands shaking as she looked down at her hands, a small scream escaped her when she saw the blood caked underneath her fingernails. It couldn't have belonged to anyone else but Gale; his arm had been bleeding from where he ripped her arrow out. "Oh my god," she choked out, wheezing. "Oh my god, I…no,  _no_!"

"Katniss!" Clint yelled, this time his voice sounding more like it had when he'd snapped at Natasha. "What the hell is going on?"

"Gale," she sobbed, her heart hammering in her chest even harder as she desperately tried to scrape the blood out from underneath her nails with her trembling hands. "Gale."

"Gale, Gale, what about him?" Even though he couldn't see her, Katniss shook her head, the tears racing down her face. "Keep talking to me, tell me what happened."

"Katniss!" Natasha's screech echoed in her ear, causing her to jump slightly. She was then brought back to the thought that she was going to fall over the edge of the tower, just like Gale had, and the panic crashed back over her head like a tidal wave.

"I killed him!" Katniss finally managed to get out, the realization that came with saying the words out loud hitting her like a brick to the face. It was excruciating and she could feel her heart pain inside her chest. Her stomach was doing backflips as she said, "He's…he's dead. I can't breathe, I can't…I can't…blood under my nails…won't stop shaking…hurt…"

It didn't take long for Clint to put two and two together. "Oh god," he whispered, almost quiet enough to where Katniss couldn't hear his voice. "She's having a panic attack."

"What? A panic attack?" Natasha's voice sounded distant, like the volume had been turned down on her end.

"I’ve seen them before; my mom used to have them. The disorientation, the hyperventilation, she can’t register with reality and she’s on overload—it’s a panic attack."

"Okay, well, how’d you stop it?" Natasha asked.

"Uh…fuck, I don’t know, take them to a quiet place?!" Clint exclaimed, and Natasha groaned loudly.

"And where do you think you're going to find a quiet place around here? You’ve got to talk her down, help her ride through it; no one can get up there to help her."

"Katniss?" Clint's voice was more direct in her ear. "Katniss, listen to me. I know you’re upset, I know you’re scared, but you can’t start shutting down. You did what you had to do, okay? There was no shaking him out of that mind spell, it was either him or you.” Another choked out sob came from Katniss. "Katniss, you did what you had to do to survive."

"He was going to kill me," she whispered.

"I know. But he can’t hurt you now," he said. “You have to breathe, you’re going to pass out and you’re not helping anyone if you’re unconscious."

"I can't—"

"Yes you can," Clint said firmly. "Come on, I'll do it with you." She could hear him inhale loudly, and exhale a few seconds either. "One; come on, you breathe, I'll count."

Drawing her knees toward her chest as she rested her head against her kneecaps so she was in a little ball, she squeezed her eyes shut and started to slowly inhale. As she exhaled, she heard Clint mark that as the first breathe. "You gotta keep doing it, kid, come on," he urged. Grinding her teeth together and doing her best to keep her focus on the situation at hand, she forced air down in her lungs and exhaled through her mouth. Clint started back over with one, and they continued climbing. It was taking almost all of the strength she had to tune out the sounds of Chitauri shots, the alarms collectively ringing out in the city and the sounds of the Hulk's roars off in the distance.

**Seven.**

_You've got to shake yourself out of this; people need you. Gale wouldn't want you to freak out. The_ real _Gale._

**Eight.**

_Loki has turned your world on its head, taken so much from you, you can’t let him win. You’re still in the game. You have to do this for Gale._

**Nine.**

The sky was a lot bluer than she remembered.

**Ten.**

Shakily exhaling for the last time, Katniss' shoulders relaxed slightly as she let go of her knees and uncurled. "Katniss?" Clint's voice kept repeating in her ear. Her hand pressed up against the glass behind her so hard she thought that there was a serious chance it would shatter from the pressure; she slowly found her sea legs. Her legs were trembling as she finally stretched out her legs all the way, standing back up. Her eye level view was back where it had been earlier, a slight breeze blowing past her and cooling her off. "Kat, are you alright?"

"Fine," she said, her voice not yet steady but as stiff as could be. Her mouth still felt dry, as though someone had stuffed it with cotton. “I…I just need to be on the ground. Down.”

"Well, if Stark would free up his schedule—"

"Thor says he's got it," Steve finally popped back up on the comm link, making his presence known. Katniss sighed, keeping her eyes trained on the skies for Thor's billowy red cape. It wasn't that hard to pick out against the skyline.

The god of thunder arrived only a few moments after Katniss had picked her bow back up, causing her to jump slightly at the sound of his arrival. It had sounded a lot like a lead weight landing on the gauntlet to her, the hammer colliding with the metal on the platform. "Lady Everdeen, I've come to return you to the ground per your wishes," he said, nodding his head out of acknowledgment.

Where she would usually snap at him that she was aware, she instead smiled a grateful smile and responded with, "Thank you."

She held on tightly to his shoulder as the two of them rocketed off down towards the ground in front of the Grand Central Terminal. Thor was holding onto her like she was a doll, unlike Tony had. It was as though Thor was terrified he'd snap her in two pieces if he dared apply any sort of pressure to her whatsoever. He was desperate to be gentle, certainly the polar opposite of his reckless brother.

As her feet reunited with the ground once more, she could see that the chaos on the ground was no calmer than it had been in the air. Clint was currently firing arrows left and right at the Chitauri who were advancing in on him, and Natasha had her legs locked around the throat of one of the aliens, desperately trying to get her hands around its neck. It took Katniss no time at all to pull an arrow from her quiver, firing directly at the torso of the Chitauri. It stumbled, falling over within seconds as Natasha neatly rolled off of its shoulder in the Chitauri's clean collapse to the ground.

Katniss lowered her bow slightly, her face unemotional. Natasha dusted her hands off on her thighs. "I had that taken care of," she said coolly.

"You’re welcome for the favor, then."

Her eyes trained in on Clint, who had just shot down another Chitauri. He turned around, his facial expression relaxing as he made his way over to her. His arms were around her in a split second, Katniss unsure of what he was doing until he had pulled away. "You okay?" he asked quietly, to which she nodded back in confirmation.

"They're coming down in waves," Natasha said, interrupting the moment slightly. "How the hell are we supposed to keep containing these things?"

"Same way we've been doing it," came Tony's voice as the Iron Man suit landed on the ground.

Natasha snarled. "You choose now to show up now?"

"Natasha, for god's sake—"

"I’ve made up my mind, I’m definitely killing you after this.”

"Tasha!" Clint interrupted her. "Bigger problems at hand."

The sound of the suit's helmet moving to look up at the sky was subtle before Tony turned his attention back on Katniss. "I need someone up on the roof, and I don't…I'm not going to put her back up on the Tower. Not right now."

Clint's eyes moved around their small little circle. "Guess I'm at bat."

"No, I need—"

"What you need is to let him go," Natasha interrupted. Katniss' head whipped over her shoulder to glare at her mother.

"You aren’t my keeper," Katniss snapped.

Tony let out a low whistle. "I smell tension," he sang, and the two of them shot a twin pair of daggers his way. "God, like mother like daughter." He was off in a second with Clint in his clutches, leaving Katniss and Natasha by themselves. Steve had gone off somewhere; where, Katniss had no clue and she really didn't care to know either, and everyone else was off to do their own thing.

Inhaling deeply, Katniss glanced over at Natasha. "Ready to do this?" she asked as a few more Chitauri began to crawl their way.

Natasha shook her head. "Not really, but I don’t think we have a choice."


	18. kiss of death

Fighting alongside Natasha was different than it was when she was beside Clint. Natasha was born and bred an assassin, and she wasn't a sniper like Clint. She was more about coordination and handwork, practically dancing around the Chitauri as she kicked them out of the way or rained bullets down upon them. Another thing that Katniss noticed that Natasha was adaptable; she'd picked up very quickly on the workings of the Chitauri technology and firearms and leaned more towards using the alien's own weapons against them. She was also a quiet fighter; with Clint, Katniss had been able to keep up small conversation as they battled off the bad guys, but Natasha was about as open as a vault. Katniss had been gnawing on her lower lip and throwing glances over her shoulder at Natasha the entire time just to watch her.

Natasha wasn't as warm or opening as Clint was towards her. What Tony had said about the whole like mother, like daughter had run pretty true to form; the both of them were much more suited in working alone. They had had their brief joint-effort moments whilst fighting; Natasha had slammed a Chitauri into the back of a cab into Katniss' direct line of fire so she could pierce it with an arrow, and Katniss had jammed an alien away from her with her bow before Natasha embedded a bullet into it with one of her guns. That was the closest they had come to fighting like a team; everything else was mostly solo work.

Katniss was perched on the top of an all but ruined car so she had a little bit of height on the Chitauri, managing to shoot them out by getting between the eyes. Natasha was currently sitting on top of a Chitauri's shoulders, her thighs locked around the neck as she tried to get her Widow's Bites directly into his neck. It had worked for her earlier and she was sticking to using her bracelets. She'd briefly explained how they worked to Katniss after taking down one of the aliens and she'd caught her staring intently at her hands.

Natasha dismounted the Chitauri as its body collapsed onto the ground, picking up one of the energy rifles that had been strewn around as each of them died and dropped their weapons. From what Katniss had seen, she was able to use it just as well as the things it had been crafted for, if not better. Steve of course, decided he was going to make his grand reappearance right about the time Natasha had whirled around with the rifle, her almost shooting him once she realized something had landed behind her. He seemed rather appalled, but didn't hold onto it too long.

His eyes flitted over to Katniss with a sort of knowing look, as if he had seen something very similar to this before. She didn't hold her gaze on him too long, because she already knew.

Natasha slumped back tiredly as Katniss jumped off of the car in a small leap, landing gracefully on the ground. "Captain," she said, trying to catch her breath. "None of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal."

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," Steve replied.

Gesturing up to the skies where many of the Chitauri riders were still whizzing past, Natasha cocked an eyebrow. "Well, maybe it's not about guns."

"You wanna get up there, you're gonna need a ride."

Natasha glared up at the sky. "I've got a ride. I could use a lift though."

Katniss' eyebrows furrowed together as she watched Natasha back up to the other side of the bridge, lunging forward slightly as she stared up at the sky. "You’re not…no," she said, shaking her head.

"Are you sure about this?" Steve echoed, holding his shield out in front of him.

Natasha shrugged. "Yeah. It's gonna be fun." Katniss watched closely as her shoulders relaxed, sprinting off towards Steve. What she did next was sheer skill, running up a car before jumping on top of the shield. Her knees bent as Steve popped her off into the air, her body twisting as she shot up and grabbed onto one of the Chitauri chariots that flew by right on cue. Katniss' eyes followed her mother in amazement.

"Damn," she breathed.

"I know," Steve responded, shaking Katniss slightly out of the state of astonishment Natasha had put her in. Her face thinned out into a line, her eyes steely. Steve took her change in attitude confusedly, the lines in his face appearing as he stared at her.

She didn't say anything to him; instead, started to make her way over to the edge of the bridge. "Whoa whoa whoa," he rushed out, chasing after her and grabbing her arm. She whipped around, braid hitting her in the face. "Where do you think you're going?"

Katniss jabbed her finger over her shoulder, in the direction that Natasha had just flown off. "Away from here, I'm going to help people," she explained. Steve shook his head in refusal, which offended Katniss even more. "What do you mean no? You keep jetting off and no one says anything to you."

"It's different—"

"Oh, right, I get it," Katniss said, nodding slowly as her face lit up in mock realization. "Even if I’m heading off to do the very thing none of you have yet to do, I’m not allowed to go without a babysitter. It’s too dangerous for someone who’s still a child."

Steve sighed in exasperation. "Will you just let that go?"

"Let what go, the fact that out of everyone in this team, I trusted you the most and you went and betrayed that the second you could? No thanks.”

"Katniss, I'm just trying to protect you," Steve protested.

"Yeah, I’m kind of sick of needing protection,” she blurted out, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "If it's not Fury trying to hide files from me, it's Tony walking on pins and needles and if it's not that, it's everyone trying to shepherd me around so that way I'm always safe! I took care of myself just fine long before I met any of you, nothing’s changed."

Katniss turned on her heel, not bothering to continue her conversation with Steve. Instead, she ignored him calling her name over and over again, running directly for the edge of the bridge before jumping off of it. She landed cleanly on top of an abandoned bus, doing a dive roll over the roof so she was closer towards the front of it. Sliding down off the hood, her feet reunited with the ground as she threw a casual glance over her shoulder. Steve was longingly gazing down, his face settled into a disappointed expression. A slight scowl danced over hers as she spun back around, making her way through the debris and small fires that were set around her path.

There were still Chitauri everywhere, all scattered across the ground where she knew for a fact people still were. She knew the bus full of people she and Clint had liberated wasn’t one of its kind, people needed help. Everyone else’s main priority was the aliens, fighting them off and gunning them down. If no one else was going to do it, then she would, even if it was partially for her own sake of mind—helping seemed easier to trudge through after her incident on the Tower than killing like it was sport.

Katniss had never set foot in New York a day in her life before all this, so maneuvering around the city proved to be a little bit complicated. There was no sense of direction; the people who were still out on the streets were running every which way, and she'd be a liar if she said that she knew where she was going. She was doing her best to keep her eyes on the sky, trying to see if she could take down any of the aircrafts from where she was that weren't occupied by Natasha. Picking out the redhead on any of the chariots was a lot harder than she'd thought, and although she wasn't following Natasha, she was doing her best to keep her eyes on her mother. It seemed like every parental figure she'd ever had in her life she managed to lose in some way or another, and she'd be damned if she let another slip away from her now. Not after this one literally returning from the dead only a few hours prior.

Turning down an alleyway by accident, she was about to walk out and follow the main road before doing a quick double take at the sense of movement from her peripheral vision. It was one of the stray Chitauri, holding what resembled a very large gun over the hood of a car. At first, it had seemed like nothing, but that was when Katniss realized there were still people inside the car. Her eyes widening in horror, she sprinted in the direction of the car. Something inside her signaled her that she wasn't going to make it to the car in time to physically take down the alien herself before it killed someone, and she stopped dead on in her tracks, reaching up behind her to grab an arrow. In one swift motion, she raised her bow, strung the arrow and let it fly. She watched on as it went straight through the alien, toppling backwards and falling off the hood of the car.

Katniss ran over to where the car was, quickly rushing to open the front door for the father in the small family of four. "Are you okay?" she questioned, her voice heavy from trying to catch her breath.

"Who are you?" the father asked, rushed as Katniss reached into his backseat to help unbuckle the little girl from her seat, who was relatively petrified.

"You need to get out of here. Doesn't matter where, but you need to get off of the streets. These things aren’t going to hesitate to kill you if you’re out in the open. Stay low, don’t go high. They’re rounding up people down in the subways, you should be safe there."

The mother of the family stared at her in confusion. "And we’re supposed to trust you?"

Katniss simply pointed her thumb over at the dead Chitauri, lying only a few feet from their car. That seemed to be enough of a reason for them, because they didn't hang around any longer. Katniss could, however, overhear the little girl talking to her father from where she stood. "Did that girl save us?"

"Yeah, honey, she did."

That resonated somewhere inside Katniss as she watched them disappear off down the corner, hopefully to safety. She was out saving people, and she knew that Gale would have been proud of her. Fighting off the bad guys was one thing; saving the innocent people was a whole other ballgame. It felt like she was ridding the red from her ledger, especially after his death, and it felt good.

As she exited the alleyway with both her bow and quiver on her back, she was suddenly cut off by the sight of enormous tanks and men dressed in camouflage making their way throughout the partially deserted streets. She watched on, doing her best to blend in with the surroundings as she could so she wasn't forced to give recaps of who she was and what was going on to anyone. The machines that had been rolling through the streets stopped, the guns mounted on top rising slightly and beginning to open fire on the Chitauri's chariots.

"Army's here," Tony confirmed in her ear, most likely to everyone else as well.

"Wonderful news," she muttered sarcastically.

"Katniss?" Clint's voice rang out in the comm. She'd all but forgotten that he was still currently stationed on a rooftop, calling out the patterns that she was supposed to if it hadn’t have been for her previous episode. "There's a bank on 42nd past Madison; bunch of civilians are caught in there. It’s a few blocks from where you are, you got it?”

"On it," she confirmed.

Following the street signs, she found the one where Clint had told her it would be. It looked like any other building on the streets, but she could hear the stir of commotion coming from inside that didn’t sound good. Quickly scanning over the building for another way in, she saw an open window on what looked like the second or third floor. The only thing holding her back was figuring out how to reach it, only one plausible option available. Shaking her head, she shook out her hands to rid of the nerves. _Alright, here we go._ Katniss then did the one and only think that she could think of, which was taking a running start at two cars that had been crushed together up against the wall most likely courtesy of the Chitauri riders. She ran up the side of the cars, using the momentum to scramble up the wall towards the window sill and grabbing onto it just barely with her hands.

Thankfully, her upper arm strength was enough to keep her hanging on while she tried to find the momentum to boost herself upwards and inside the bank. It was dimly lit inside, and as soon as she'd climbed in, she pressed herself against one of the columns, contemplating her next move. On the opposite side of the column, several Chitauri soldiers stood over the crowd of terrified people, their weapons pointed on them. Daring to look over her shoulder slightly, she could see one of the aliens charging what she assumed was a bomb, the beeping noise.

Closing her eyes, Katniss slowly reached for her bow and an arrow out of her quiver, counting to three before she revealed herself. She shot one of the aliens that hadn't been expecting her, it collapsing to the ground and their weapon falling down beside them. "Surprise," she whispered to herself as the other aliens caught notice of her, shrieking in frustration. One of the remaining aliens pointed his weapon at her and she dove behind a desk for cover as he fired.

"Come on," she hissed under her breath, grinding her teeth together as she waited like a sitting duck for her slaughter. Grabbing another arrow, she raised up on her knees from behind the desk to shoot, but she was caught off guard at the sight of something else.

Sure enough, there was Steve, stealing all her thunder per usual.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" she shrieked, jumping over the desk.

"Taking care of the situation on 42nd past Madison; what are  _you_  doing?" he gritted out, backhanding one of the soldiers. Katniss watched as it flipped over the railing, releasing her arrow and watching as it embedded into the side of his head as it landed on the ground around the group of people below. Everyone backed away from it, murmuring to themselves.

"I can handle this, Rogers!"

Steve didn't have any time to reply to her, as the third alien put him into a headlock and slowly begin to tear the helmet off of his head. Katniss drew her bow again, standing in front of him as she tried to get a good lock on the alien. The way that they were squirming around, she was terrified that she'd accidentally shoot Steve instead. "Shoot!" he strangled out.

She couldn’t act on it, the two of them struggling and preventing her from getting a clean shot. The beeping on the bomb grew more rapid, her eyes darting down to see the flashes of light on it getting faster and faster before looking back up at Steve. She could feel her heart hammering inside her chest, her facial expression terrified as her eyes darted back and forth between him and the Chitauri holding him captive. His helmet was riding up off his face as he gestured with his free arm to the people below. "Everyone, clear out!" he bellowed. No one seemed to move.

Katniss watched, frozen as the Chitauri flipped him over, his back slamming into the ground. He groaned in pain, Katniss relaxing her hold on the arrow and letting it clatter to the floor as she rushed to his side. "Katniss," he mumbled, "You gotta get out of here."

The beeps of the bomb were coming so close together now that it almost sounded like one consecutive beep. "No!" she shook her head. "I'm not gonna leave you."

"Katniss, go!"

Steve had slumped up against the wall as she looked over her shoulder. The Chitauri had dove over the bomb, desperate to get it to stop, even though they both knew that his attempts were futile. She only had a literal split second to make a decision. Her arm darting out for Steve's shield, she rested her bow against it before moving it up over her head. Her hands wrapped around the top of Steve's arm, throwing the shield in front of him as she pushed him out of the window and jumping behind him as the bomb detonated; what little momentum she'd gotten intensifying due to the blast.

The sound of glass shattering almost deafened her as the rush of wind flew past them. Her back landed hard against the top of a car, a groan escaping her as the wind was knocked clean out of her lungs. Steve landed to the side of her, the shield and her bow clattering onto the hood and sliding off to the ground. She moaned in pain, trying to move.

"Katniss?" Steve sighed. "Kat, you okay?"

"Give me a minute," she winced.

The sound of Steve rolling himself off of the car should have been enough to push herself off as well, but she couldn't find it in her. Everything in her body was screaming, glass currently surrounding her. She wasn't like Steve; she wasn't a super soldier who could handle some glass shards or a rough landing. She felt a slight tug on her boot, propping her elbows up to lift the upper half of her body slightly. Steve was standing below her, brushing off his suit with either hand extended. "Come on," he said. "I'll help you down."

That was enough motivation, and she used her propped elbows to thrust her body forward, sliding down the car. What she hadn't expected was for her legs to be the equivalent of gelatin, giving way underneath her as her feet reunited with the ground. Steve was quick to grab her, one hand on her shoulder and the other on her back to help her back up. "Thanks," she muttered.

The sounds of the doors to the bank being opened caught her attention, and her head turned in its direction. A low sigh of relief escaped her as she saw dozens of the people who had been inside being ushered out by several of the police officers, her eyes closing for only a moment. She leaned up against the car for support, head lolling back on the top of it.

"Thank god," she heard Steve whisper under his breath. He reached over, touching her hair and slightly startling her.

Her eyes flew open, lifting her head up so she was looking directly at him. "Sorry," he apologized. "You just had some glass in your hair." He looked away as soon as he had turned to face her.

Glancing down, she could see that her braid had completely fallen out from earlier, her hair now hanging around her face in limp waves. He had his eyes focused in on the people still filing out of the bank, but hers were completely on him. She assumed he could feel her eyes burning holes into him because he slowly turned back to her. "Why did you come?" Katniss asked hoarsely.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why did you come? Did you think I wasn’t going to be able to handle it?”

"No, Kat—"

"I saved your life in there, in case you didn't realize—"

"—I know that—"

"—is this a trust thing?"

"Katniss!" Steve interrupted, silencing her. "I came because there was something that I needed to do." Katniss cocked her head to the side in confusion as her eyebrows knitted together.

"What?" she asked.

She hardly had any time to react to anything that he did. He grabbed her face with both hands, crushing his lips onto hers. It took her completely by surprise; she hadn't really expected that to come from him. Katniss had simply assumed that Tony's jabs were just that, ploys to get underneath her skin, but apparently, he was fantastic at reading people. Steve's lips were gentle against hers, almost hesitant to move. Her eyes flickered shirt, hands moving to rest on his waist. It was a simple kiss, really, the feeling of it as natural to her as shooting an arrow. It had never crossed her mind, experiencing this with him, only now beginning to realize that this was what she needed from him, their bodies pressed together with her back still leaning against the car. Steve came up for air and pulled away slowly, her lips still lingering there as her eyelids flickered, her grey eyes on his. A soft smile spread over her lips, hands still resting on his waist. "What…"

"Rule number one," he said in a low voice. "Expect the unexpected."

"That was…unexpected." She was slightly breathless as she kept her eyes trained on his.

Steve shrugged in response, his hands resting along her neck with one of his hands under her cheekbone, thumb moving back and forth over her skin. "I figured if there's a chance we might die, what the hell, right?" Katniss laughed softly.

"What the hell," she agreed. And for a moment, the fact that they were standing on a battleground, alien fire opening above them and chaos still surrounding them, just sort of dissipated.


	19. will the world end in fire?

The moment of quiet bliss was shortly outlived as a small fleet of Chitauri riders zipped over their heads. Katniss and Steve both ducked down, Steve's hand resting on the top of her back as she watched the chariots go by. She rose up before Steve did, catching sight of something that she hadn't quite seen on any of the others during the fight. There had been a flash of red on top of the aircraft, and quite the shade of red it had been. "Did you see that?" she asked, and Steve shook his head.

"See what?"

Katniss rushed over to the other side of the car where her bow had clattered onto the ground after falling from the window. "It's Natasha," she explained hurriedly. Natasha was still on top of the alien's shoulders, doing her best to use the alien as her access to the navigating controls. She'd been flying around this entire time; the question that Katniss wanted to know the answer to was _why_. Steve looked puzzled as Katniss strung an arrow, drawing back and trying to get a good target in on the ship that Natasha was having somewhat of an issue steering. Katniss started yelling into her comm. "Widow! Wi—Natasha, what are you doing?"

"Trying to lose this son of a bitch Loki," she grumbled in Katniss' ear. Sure enough, the farther out Katniss looked, she could see a golden horned helmet glinting in the afternoon sunlight. He, along with a few other chariots was occupied in a hot pursuit of Natasha, weaving in and out and firing at her in order to take her out of the sky. Loki was playing to kill.

Katniss' blood boiled underneath her skin as she thought back to "Well swing back by me, I'll get him," she reasoned, teeth grinding together.

"I can't!"

Katniss rolled her eyes. "Have you tried it yet?"

"Huh Stark, you were right, she does take after me," Natasha commented dryly, and a third voice just laughed bitterly. Katniss assumed that it was Tony, eavesdropping in on conversations like he always seemed to. She didn't take her eyes off of the chariot Natasha was on, watching as her steering movements got jerkier and seemed to be more out of control than they had been to begin with. The sound of Natasha's voice filled her ear once more, a little more terrified. "Hawkeye!"

"Nat, what are you doing?"

"Natasha—"

"Hang on, I've got him," Clint said over the comm, right as there was a clanging sound on the ground near Katniss and Steve. She tuned out the conversation in her ear, aiming her bow directly at the source of the sound. Instead of being greeted with the sight of a Chitauri warrior, it was just Tony. Yes, just Tony, who probably had a grin the size of Nebraska on his face underneath the suit. After all, he’d been one to insinuate there was something more lurking beneath the surface between the two of them, so she wasn't going to expect any less out of him.

Sighing, Katniss lowered her bow and returned the arrow to her quiver. "What, planning to shoot me?" Tony chuckled.

"Yeah," Steve answered for her, his eyes darting over to where Katniss was and a knowing sort of look written on his face, like he was now on the inside of it.

Smiling at him, she ignored the sound of the helmet moving as Tony glanced back and forth between them. "What; is this some sort of couple thing?" The pair of them simultaneously shot daggers Tony's way, him holding his hands up in mock arrest for defense. "Sorry, sorry, just asking."

"You don't come down without any sort of reason, so what is it?" Katniss cut to the chase.

"I know that I'm probably asking a lot of you," he began, the tone of his voice quickly changing over to much more wary rather than confident, like usual. "But I need to get a higher altitude on the situation, just so we can try and keep these things from getting out any farther. You think you can handle being put back on Stark Tower?"

Steve opened his mouth to shoot down the idea, but Katniss shook her head. "I can handle it," she said.

"Katniss—"

"It's fine." Her voice was oddly calm as she talked over top of Steve, giving him a small smile as she closed the distance between herself and Tony. "I'll be back, I promise." Steve didn't seem too entirely comfortable with the thought of that, as his face was twisted into a particularly dissatisfied expression. Her arm snaked underneath Tony's arm, holding on tightly in preparation for his takeoff.

Katniss didn't keep her eyes on Steve too much longer after Tony's thrusters sputtered, launching them into the air. It was awkwardly quiet between the two of them, Katniss doing her best to look past him and instead at the skyline, trying to pinpoint everyone out or at least see where small groups of aliens were banding together. Finally, Tony cleared his throat uncomfortably into the comm. "So, you and Steve—"

"Drop it," she snapped.

"Right, got it."

One thing that she had to keep herself from doing was looking down at the ground near the base of the tower for Gale. She knew that his body had landed somewhere down there after shooting him; it wasn't like Loki of all people would have the decency of tending to a dead body. Loki was out only for himself, and had probably planned to dispose of Gale afterwards anyways. She shuddered at the thought of his mangled body somewhere on the ground, trying her best to keep her thoughts off the idea.

Her feet met the ground of the small patio that surrounded one of the levels to the tower, underneath the gauntlet leading into the penthouse pad. The glass was smashed out; Katniss' guess was that multiple people had been banged into it at some point or another, and internally, she prayed that Loki was one of those people. "Shoot straight, Katniss," Tony advised, and with a quick squeeze on either of her shoulders, he was gone.

Tony had been right about one thing; the Chitauri were steadily coming out of the doorway that the Tesseract had opened, and there was no sign of them slowing down any time soon. Being back at the vantage point she'd felt most powerful at earlier, it was like the energy had resurfaced inside of her. She was firing at any and every ship that crossed her level point of eyesight, showing absolutely no mercy. She didn't have much of a tactic or strategy; it was mostly just random shots.

The comm came back to life, Clint speaking up. "These things are getting worse," he said grimly.

"On your end, maybe; I've got plenty of control," Katniss retaliated, trying to line up her next target.

"I—wait, are you back on Stark Tower?" Clint sounded appalled, and it was like she could hear Tony dry swallowing right there in her ear. "No, I…no. I'm out of arrows; I have no idea where Thor or Cap are, Stark's pretty much about to die from a dead battery, Hulk's completely under fire. You can't stay out in this."

"You don’t get to dish out orders for me just because you’re a little twitchy," she growled. "It doesn't work like that, Clint, I can take care of myself."

"This isn’t a discussion—"

"You’re right about that!"

"For the love of god, quit being your mother's daughter and listen!"

"None of this is your call!" Katniss screamed, beyond frustrated as she accidentally released the arrow she'd been holding onto tightly, waiting for the right moment to fire it. It went hurtling clean past one of the ships, disappearing from her sight. Letting out a frustrated huff, she drew yet another arrow to try again before adding her next threat, "Do not try and take me off this tower, or I swear I'll put an arrow through your eye socket."

Her anger surged up inside of her, teeth grinding down. Here she was in the exact same predicament she’d been stuck in far too much the last few days: Nick Fury and all his second comings handing her out orders, instructions, as though she didn’t know what was good for herself. She wasn’t their agent, she wasn’t their soldier; no one knew her better than herself. She didn’t take to demands lightly, even if they were coming from her father. She’d been the only caretaker she’d had for years, listening to him was optional as far as she was concerned.

"Hey, Katniss?" Natasha's voice buzzed in her ear.

Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as she took her attention off the skies in front of her, like it would help her focus more. "Yeah?" she said, letting her arrow fly from the string without looking. The sound of the explosion following a few seconds later confirmed she'd hit her mark.

"You wouldn’t happen to see Loki’s scepter anywhere, would you?” Natasha asked.

Giving the patio a quick glance-over, she spotted the gleaming staff that Loki had had in his possession almost every other time that she'd been in his presence. It was lying there unoccupied only a few feet away from her. "Staring right at it," she replied. "You need it?"

"If we want to end this thing, yeah."

"Tell me what you need," Katniss shrugged, sending another arrow flying at a Chitauri aircraft. The arrowhead buried itself into the driver's skull, and she watched almost satisfactorily as the ship hurtled in the direction of a building straight ahead. Clint would have been proud of her, she thought, but she was currently trying to ignore all thoughts of him in her mind.

"Well, I can't exactly take the elevator inside Stark Tower to come get it," she mused. "Is there any way you think you can get it up here?"

Katniss began to think that through. There was no way that she'd be able to shoot it up at them; it was way too big. Throwing it wasn't exactly a good option either, seeing as how there'd be no way in hell she'd get it up to the height Natasha was at. Her hand absentmindedly running over the top of her quiver, her fingers passed over one unusual arrow. Brows knitting together, she pulled it out, realizing that it was her grappling hook. "How do you feel about scaling buildings?" she asked.

"That depends."

"It’s the only option we’ve got.”

"Fire away then," Natasha encouraged. Nodding to herself, Katniss repeated her usual steps of stringing the arrow and trying to find a target. It was a lot harder this time, since she was looking up for once. The sun was glaring in her eyes, and seeing the Chitauri chariots descending down from the portal distracted her a bit. Biting down on her lip, she did her best to line the arrow up with the top of the building, where she could see Natasha's red hair flashing in the light. Katniss took a few steps back, careful not to go over the edge before firing the arrow. The grappling hook extended, landing on top of the roof successfully.

She sighed in relief. "Alright, I'll get you the scepter," she said, dropping her bow from her hands.

It didn't take Natasha any time at all to shimmy down the wire, sticking one of her legs out to keep her place on the wire as she reached the bottom where Katniss was. She swiveled her torso around, one hand extending out as far as it could go. Katniss handed her the scepter before backing away, leaving herself to watch.

Natasha moved like a black widow might; gracefully and a lot smoother than Katniss knew she would. She made climbing back up the wire one handed and using her legs to keep a hold while holding the scepter over her head look incredibly easy. Katniss knew if she ever gave that a shot, she'd tumble to her death below. A man, who she figured was Dr. Selvig, was leaning over the edge, both of his arms extended out to get the scepter. She could only assume that he'd been freed from the spell as well.

It took Natasha a lot longer to make it back up to the top, but still, it felt like no time at all. Katniss watched as she swung the scepter down before propelling it up in Dr. Selvig's direction; he did catch it, despite being startled by the fact Natasha had dared to throw it up at him. After that, her mother's feet were back on the top of the building only a few moments later.

Going back to firing at the Chitauri wasn't really on her mind any more. Instead, she was doing her best to see what was going on up top. She hated feeling absolutely hopeless as she stood idly, hand on her hip and the other shielding her eyes from the sunlight as she tried to keep an eye on things. "Katniss," Natasha's voice sounded again. "Don't watch me. Keep on firing."

"Natasha—"

"Just keep firing okay? Go until you run out of arrows."

Even if she didn’t want to admit it, Natasha was right. Picking up her bow from the ground, she drew another arrow and started up her routine of firing. Her mind flashed back to what Clint had said; he hadn't come back in on the comm, and while she hoped that that wasn't a sign he was dead, she hoped that it wasn't a sign he was coming for her either. She didn't need to be protected anymore; hell, she hadn't needed it to begin with. Katniss could take care of herself.

Her shots were one after the other, taking no pauses in between. It was getting harder to pin down the Chitauri ships; they seemed to have gotten the message she was firing ruthlessly and weren't swooping past her. The arm she used to shoot with was aching, screaming to take a break and the sweat was pouring down her face. Katniss reached behind her, only to be treated to the realization that she was completely arrowless.

Everything that Clint had said earlier was playing out in front of her eyes as she took in a real glance at the city in front of her for the first time. Chitauri riders were still flying around, Leviathans prowling around every which way and gunfire following them. Fires were visible from almost every corner, something else exploding every few seconds. Alarms were sounding, screams, shouting, more gunfire, all of it was still audible despite towering above it all. The world was ending around them, it seemed, and it was going down in flames. Ice be damned.

"I can close it!" came Natasha's raspy voice over the comm, sounding almost like she was in a panic. "Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Steve yelled back.

Tony was next to throw in his two cents. "No, wait!"

"Stark, these things are still coming!"

"I got a nuke coming in," Tony explained. "It's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."

Sure enough, off in the distance was the faint outline of a missile headed straight for them. The cogs in her mind were whirring as she watched the Iron Man head for it, getting a hold and directing it straight towards the city. Steve piped back up, his voice solemn. "Stark, you know that's a one way trip."

That was when it clicked in Katniss' head. "No, Tony, you…no,  _no_. Let Natasha shut the portal down instead."

"And let the nuke go off and kill us all? Sometimes you gotta take one for the team, baby bird," he said sadly in her ear.

It felt like she was dry swallowing cement, watching him grow closer and closer to where she was. "Tony, don't do this," she whispered in a vain attempt to get him to change his mind.

"He has to," Natasha's strangled voice replied.

"No he doesn't!" Katniss barked.

Tony, whose metal arms were wrapped above his head around the missile, shot up past her towards the portal. Her eyes followed after him in horror, head leaning back as he gained altitude. He wasn't far from the entrance at all at that point, and her heart felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds, resting at the bottom of her stomach as she watched along. The Iron Man's suit had just reached the beginning of the opening, piercing the slight film that connected New York to wherever in space when everything started moving in slow motion.

What with her attention being trained on him, she didn't hear the sound of the rogue Chitauri landing behind her, the one alien out of the thousands that had dared to land on the Tower where she was over the entire course of the battle, sneaking up behind her. By then, it was too late for her to realize what was happening; all she could feel was an excruciating pain as something foreign pierced through her body malevolently. The wind choked up inside of her lungs and bubbled up to the top of her throat but never did come out, a slight breeze blowing past her and swaying her like she was as dainty as a domino. It felt like an out of body experience, her entire body on fire and feeling as if she was all of a sudden a dead weight. She could hear the scream rip from her own throat in raw agony, eyes frozen wide. Natasha's head whipped over her shoulder in a panic over the sound of the scream, just in time to see her daughter's body crumple onto the ground.


	20. white walled confessions

Everything  _hurt_.

There was a fuzzy white spot growing in her vision, and Katniss was almost positive that this was what dying felt like. She couldn't feel anything anymore; it was just that little white spot and her. The white continually kept growing, getting brighter and brighter as it spread out through her entire vision, so painfully white that it was giving her a headache. It was glowing, glaring in her eyes as her head throbbed at the sight of it, and then things started to come into focus. Overhead, the glowering white focused in to be a ceiling, not as white as it had been initially. The ceiling was moving from side to side, slowly beginning to nauseate her as the pounding in her head didn't slow any.

_Okay, so maybe this isn't what dying feels like._

A low groan fell past her lips as she tried to wiggle her fingers, feeling like they were made of lead. Her head still throbbing, her eyelids fluttered trying to get used to the light in the room. She could hear the sounds of movement over in the corner of her room, unsure of what was causing it. Unable to find the energy to lift her head, she let it roll to the side just a bit. Her entire body was stiff and she winced at the frozen pain her body was still in, another small moan rising in her throat. Over in the corner, Katniss saw the red and didn't need totally in tune eyesight to know who was standing there.

"Am I dead?" Katniss groaned out, her throat completely dry. Natasha's head whipped over her shoulder, her eyes on red alert. Her face softened a little as she realized that Katniss was awake, but the rest of her body remained rigid. She turned back around slowly, the sounds of some sort of liquid being poured following after.

"If you were dead, would I be here?" came Natasha's steady voice. It was like nothing had ever happened; she was acting completely normal. She turned back around with a cup in her hands, crossing over to the seat closest to Katniss' bed. She must have been sitting there the entire time, either her or someone else and Natasha just hadn’t bothered to move it.

"You were the one who let everyone believe you were dead for five years."

Katniss tried readjusting herself in what she now had deducted was her hospital bed, but that proved to put her in even more pain. Natasha held out her hand, as though she was trying to stop her. "I wouldn't do that," she advised cautiously. "You've had a lot of stitches and are currently in between medications; moving around is only going to make you feel even more like Humpty Dumpty."

"God," Katniss sighed again as she fell back in between the pillows, feeling near exhausted just from trying to move. "What even happened?"

Natasha's face paled over just slightly; hard enough for someone to notice if they weren't sitting right next to her. "You really don't remember?" she asked, swallowing. Katniss squinted her eyes shut, trying to recall the memories of New York. It all seemed fuzzy, like she'd just dreamt all of it up. The alien invasion, Natasha making her surprise appearance, Gale's death, her panic attack, Steve kissing her; it all felt like some thoroughly fabricated story that didn't even feel like she'd even dreamed about it when she started to think about it.

"Not really…I mean, I remember seeing Tony going up into the wormhole, but nothing after that. It all felt like a dream,” she finally admitted.

Natasha gave a small nod in understanding. "The doctor said your memories could be a little fuzzy for a while once you woke up, between the meds and coming out of shock after."

"After?" Natasha's lips pursed, twitching slightly at the mention of it. She seemed uncomfortable, which was a new look for her. "After what?" Katniss tried again, this time a lot firmer than the last.

Her mother sighed softly. "No one was paying any attention to anything but Tony; one of them got up behind you on the Tower and…" Natasha's voice trailed off, and as if to prove a point, a surge of pain ripped up through her back. It brought back a clearly vivid memory to Katniss' mind; the Chitauri sneaking up, unnoticeable in comparison as she kept her eyes trained on Tony shooting up towards the portal and only having its presence known when the dagger plunged into her back. The scream that had left her mouth as soon as she felt the pain, and the pain on Natasha's face the last thing that she saw before she passed out. Nothing felt fuzzy about that memory.

Natasha frowned. "You've been out for about three days now, they weren't entirely sure if you'd wake up, being out that long before we got to you."

Eyebrows knitting together, Katniss stared at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?" Another sigh escaped Natasha.

* * *

_"Oh my god," Natasha said, breathless as she stared down at the sprawled out figure down below, the sprawled out figure that belonged to none other than her own child next to that of an alien. "Fuck, fuck—"_

_"You've got to calm down," Selvig warned. "If you're going to close that portal—"_

_"Don't you_ dare _tell me to calm down!" she roared. Her head snapped back up to the portal, where she could see the beginnings of the nuclear explosion spread out, racing towards the portal. She knew that they had no time left to wait for Tony, because the longer that they waited for him, the more critical Katniss' situation got. "Goddammit, come on Stark."_

_"Close it," said Steve in her ear, and without missing a beat, Natasha ground her teeth together and shoved the scepter into the core of the Tesseract, holding on until Selvig began waving his hands. She pulled it out immediately, the Tesseract cutting off the beam reaching up to the portal. There was no more paying attention to the sky, even though only a few short moments later, Tony fell right through the closing portal before it closed for good._

_"We need a med team, now!" she yelled into the comm, hoping and praying that Fury would be the one to copy since he’d finally gotten on their line._

_"Widow, what's wrong?" asked Steve. "Natasha, tell me!"_

_"It'sKatniss; she's been stabbed, one of those Chitauri snuck up behind her and got her," she rushed out, dropping Loki's scepter as she ran for the roof access door. "For the love of_ god _, where is Clint?!"_

_"'M here, Tasha," came Clint's slurred speech. He was currently lying out in the abandoned work office of what looked like a bank, glass strewn about. He arched his back, trying not to embed any more of it in his skin. "Bank, I think."_

_Natasha was taking the stairs three at a time down to the penthouse suite as she did her best to call out orders. "Get Fury on the comm, call in a med team—"_

_"—come on, you know that we never have an extraction plan, Tash—"_

_"Your daughter is dying!" she screeched. Inside of Clint, it was like a switched had been flipped._

_"Sorry, wanna repeat that?" he said, the tone of his voice completely business as he pulled himself off of the floor, dodging the glass bits as best as he could. "Could’ve sworn you just said Katniss is dying."_

_"Because she is!” Natasha sprinted out onto the patio, kicking the body of the Chitauri over the edge in one swift movement as she tried to get closer to Katniss. It wasn't a pretty sight; the knife was sticking out of her back and blood pooling around the object where she'd been stabbed. Katniss' eyes were closed, a small bit of blood around her lips. "Come on," Natasha growled, grabbing her daughter's face and trying to move her so she could check a pulse. "Come on, wake up. Stay with me."_

_"Alright, hey. Alright. Good job guys, let's just not come in tomorrow," said Tony, obviously unaware that his ramblings were being broadcast out over the comm. Natasha assumed he was perfectly alright just from that alone._

_“You're alive, you survived, good fucking job,” Natasha snapped. “Time for you to be of some use; get Fury on the line and tell him to send a med team before he’s the one leaving in a body bag!"_

_Steve was on the ground, pacing the length of Tony's stretched out body on the ground as he attempted to get his comm to go through to Fury. "It's not working, it's not…only Tony's comm was up and running with the Helicarrier."_

_"Stark, get your ass on the line_ now _," Clint barked as he ran down the abandoned staircase of the building he'd landed in, damning the architect who'd decided that approximately a thousand stairs was a good idea of any kind. "Tasha, is she breathing?"_

_Natasha, on the other hand, was struggling to find a pulse in Katniss' arm or neck. "I…I can't tell, if she does, it's too weak for me to pick up on. Tony, I—"_

_"I know!" Tony roared. "She's my family too, I'm, no Nick, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to Natasha—that's another story for another day, get a Quinjet out here and now! She's going to bleed to death and I swear to god if you're the reason she dies I'm going to—no, not Natasha, Katniss!" Tony was already fed up with everyone around him, a long, exasperated sigh pushing past his lips._

_Clint pushed open the heavy doors of the bank with no trouble at all, racing out towards the bridge where his teammates had last been. Thor was standing there, looking rather useless, and with Tony's suit as dead as they got, he was the only other option of getting up in the air. "Thor," he started, short of breath._

_"Say no more, fair archer, I shall take you up to where your wife and daughter are," Thor said, a small smile on his face as he extended his arm out to Clint._

_"Yeah, she's not my—"_

_"Married?!”_

_"Nick, I will personally go retrieve that nuke and send it hurtling right towards you and your little floating Battleship in the Sky if you do not scramble a fucking jet to come and save this girl's life."_

_"Is she breathing? Dammit, Natasha, is she breathing?"_

_"Okay lover boy, take it down a notch—" Tony began, putting Fury on hold as he was too fed up with him. He knew that if it came down to it, he'd shove her in a hyperbaric chamber in the Tower and force the big guy to shrink back down to Bruce Banner so that they keep her holding on just a little while longer. The medics at SHIELD were better qualified to operate on a teenage girl in a life or death situation and in the back of his mind, he knew he wouldn't be able to so much as look at her knowing his goddaughter’s life was in his hands and slipping out between his fingers by the second._

_"Stark, I can actually tolerate you, don't make me—"_

_"She’s_ dying _!" Natasha shouted, cutting off the bickering between the two. "The fighting can wait!”_

_Thor and Clint arrived on the patio a few moments later, Clint's face twisted in horror the second he saw Katniss' body. Thor looked on, saddened before he spotted Loki lying in the rubble inside of the penthouse. He quietly excused himself, leaving the three alone for a moment. Clint was on his knees in a split second, searching for her pulse in the same places Natasha had only moments before. She rocked back on her knees, just staring on. Clint realized that she wasn't doing anything, his head rising to meet her eyes. "You are not giving up on her,” he muttered dangerously._

_"I can't find her pulse Clint—"_

_"She's our child Natasha, we don't give up on her!" he snapped. Natasha stared back at him, her eyes only a tiny bit wider, but enough for someone like Clint to pick up on. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Okay, so we get her on her back. We take the knife out, and we get her on her back to keep her breathing.”_

_"You and I both know that knife staying in there could be the only thing keeping her alive right now," Natasha replied, her voice quiet._

_"It doesn’t matter if she’s not breathing, Nat! Stark,_ please  _tell me—"_

_"Take a breather, Fury values his life way too much to let that girl die. He said they're getting that jet out here as fast as they can, ETA five minutes," Tony reassured them as best he could._

_Clint and Natasha both looked back up at each other. "Natasha, we have to," Clint said, his voice strangled. "We can stop the bleeding for five minutes, she can’t go without air that long and come back unscathed.” Natasha nodded, knowing that there was no other alternative. "Okay, once that dagger is out…your jacket. Take it off, put it under her wound once we flip her. Get some pressure on it, have something absorb and stifle the blood flow.”_

_"On your count?"_

_"On my count."_

_With the firm nod of his head, Clint put his fingers around the dagger and slowly pulled it out of her. Her blood coated the entire length of the knife that had been buried in her body, beginning to pool out of the wound. "Natasha, do it," Clint ordered as he threw the knife over to the side, helping Natasha out of her jacket. Clint rolled her body over to the side, Natasha balling her jacket up and placing it against Katniss’ back as they flipped her over carefully._

_There were few times that Clint Barton had ever had to give CPR to anyone, and with his blood covered hands and trying to tune out the madness that was still carrying on over the comm, it was a lot more complicated. Natasha just sat on the backs of her knees, watching and for once in her life, feeling utterly helpless._

_"If it's all the same to you," she heard come from inside the penthouse. Turning around, she could see that Steve, Tony, and Bruce had all arrived, standing around whom she assumed was Loki. She rested a hand on Clint's shoulder, getting up to go and see what was going on. Steve saw her, quickly rushing away from Tony's side to go and check on Katniss. He looked as though he'd seen a ghost. On the ground at the rest of the team's feet was their perpetrator, doing his best to act nonchalant. Loki adjusted himself on the small step. "I'll have that drink now." Natasha snarled at him, Tony's arm outstretched over her chest to stop her from getting within arm’s reach of him._

_They could all hear the sounds of the whirring of a Quinjet, landing out on the landing pad that Stark had built on, which alerted the sign that they were getting the hell out of there. As she made her way outside to assess the scene, she could see Clint and Steve both shrouding over Katniss, refusing to leave her side as the swarming med team made their way to get her on a stretcher and loaded. Some people were realizing that she was standing there, pointing and staring only for a moment before focusing back on their work._

_It was right back to the madness._

* * *

"You were in the OR for at least four hours," Natasha explained, extending the small cup of water out to Katniss. Katniss took it hesitantly, her hands shaking as she did so. "I'm pretty sure Fury was ready to tear all of us a new one, and Clint was about to go out of his mind. Captain Rogers didn't look like he was taking it too easy, either."

"And Tony? Is Tony okay?" Katniss asked, remembering how the last thing she'd seen before the world went black was Tony disappearing into the portal. Natasha dismissed it with the wave of her hand.

"Tony can bounce back from just about anything; his ego softened the blow when he fell from the heavens." Katniss smiled weakly at the sound of someone cracking a joke about Tony, reminding her of something close to normalcy. Or at least, what normalcy had been for the past few days. Natasha didn't smile, but Katniss could tell that the corners of her lips had turned upward ever so slightly.

There was a painfully awkward silence that fell over them, and even though Katniss' head was throbbing in pain, it didn't stop her mind from racing any. Now that Natasha was there in front of her, and it was just the two of them, there were so many questions to be asked. Fiddling around with the cup of water in her hands, she did her best not to look in Natasha's direction.

It didn't take long for Natasha to cut the silence open wide. "When I found out I was pregnant…I uh, didn’t want the baby. Didn’t want _you_. Assassins don’t have children, they don’t make good parents. I was told I’d never even be able to have kids to start, so you were an unwelcome surprise, I guess. I wanted to terminate, but Barton talked me into reconsidering. And I did, but I swore I was going to stay as detached as possible. That’s where all disasters begin, you know, when you get attached. But you had Clint wrapped around your finger before you were even born, despite the both of us agreeing our one and only option was going to put you in a safe house after you were born. He wanted to give you a name, always checked up on me—hell, if he could have, he would’ve given birth to you. He'd always call you by that god awful name that he said we were going to name you, Alanis. I  _loathed_ it," Natasha chuckled bitterly, staring down at her fingernails. "Finally, I was just so fed up that I told him I didn't want something that sounded like it belonged to a fantasy creature, I wanted a Russian name. Katya. We really couldn't agree, so to compromise, he put them both together and came up Katniss. We tacked on another ‘s’ at the end."

Katniss watched her mom closely, doing her best to take in the sight of her in case she disappeared the next time she blinked. "I was told that I was named after the plant," she said hesitantly. Natasha snorted.

"You think I'd willingly name you after a plant?" She shook her head. “Whatever your safe house parents came up with was on their own accord, but you weren’t named after a _plant_. Sounds like something Stark would do.”

Tony. Katniss vaguely remembered how Natasha had blown Tony's dirty little secret, how he'd known that she'd been alive the entire time. "Why…why did you trust him?" she asked hoarsely. "Why did you name him my godfather…why was he the one who helped you run away? Why did you even run away in the first place?" The questions kept on tumbling out of her mouth.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Natasha let out a sigh. "It wasn’t safe. The cases I was assigned to back then, going undercover…it’s easy to make a mistake, leave a loose end, create a trail. And there were angry people,  _dangerous_  people who wanted my head on a stick. SHIELD doesn’t keep secrets well, and sticking around only meant that I'd give them access to things they didn’t need to get their hands on and get a lot of people killed. So while I was in Budapest with Clint, I made my getaway. It wasn't just about me anymore and I knew that. I ran straight to Stark Tower because Tony was deathly afraid of me—"

"He still is," Katniss pointed out.

"Tony was scared of me, so I knew he’d do what I’d ask. He had the means to make my disappearance more…legitimate, he could help me get away without so much as a hair left behind. He’s got money, serious money, it’s why he’s your godfather. Ever since I did that detail for the Avengers Initiative, I knew he’d be the only one in this crazy world that I could count on to keep you safe if something happened to Clint and I, even more so than SHIELD. I think he fears me more than he does Nick Fury, anyways. I left Budapest, was in New York for all of two hours before I jetted off to Australia, where I was positive they wouldn't come looking for me. Been moving around ever since so no one could trace me."

"You destroyed Clint," Katniss whispered accusingly. "He went through hell because of you."

"And you don't think I feel horrible about that?" Natasha snapped. "He's the only man I've ever lo—" She caught herself in her tracks, falling silent.

"You what?"

Changing the subject completely, Natasha brought up something that Katniss hadn't ever thought would make a connection to this crazy world. "I found out where you were a few months ago, kept a close eye on you for a while, just to see how you were. I knew that you were a good shot; it's why I stashed that bow in your hollow."

"That was you?" Katniss asked in disbelief. Natasha nodded in confirmation.

"That was me." She slowly rose from her chair, wiping her hands on her thighs. "Doctors stitched you up really good, said you might need some rehab after since the stab wound was pretty deep, but it won't be anything too serious. After that, we can send you back to—"

"Whoa, back up," Katniss said, using her elbows to scoot herself up farther on the hospital bed so she was somewhat sitting up. "What do you mean send me back?"

Natasha's eyes darted around the room for a moment before they locked back on Katniss. She shrugged. "You're not staying. There's no way I'm going to let that happen."

"No," Katniss dismissed, a forced laugh escaping her as she shook her head. "You can't be serious."

"Dead."

Katniss could feel the anger rising up in her stomach. "No, you can’t just…ship me back off. After everything that I've seen, after everything that I've  _lost_? I killed the only person that I cared about and cared about me three days ago, if I go back there…no, it's not happening!" Her voice grew progressively louder.

"It's not a debate—"

"I'm old enough to make my own decisions and I'm staying here at SHIELD."

Natasha laughed bitterly. "After all the secrets that they kept from you? You really want to stick around?"

"I went seventeen years feeling like the outcast and in one week here, I already belong. I have you, Clint, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Thor. You can't just take me away from that, I don't care  _who_  you are."

"I'm your  _mother._ "

"And when were you there?!" Katniss fired back. "No one seems to understand that I was the one who took care of me before any of you came along. I was the only person I had. I am perfectly capable of looking out for myself, and I'm sure as hell capable to do this. I don't  _need_  you people to keep me safe; I'm old enough to make my own damn decisions and I think I can handle a little roughing around the edges."

Natasha shook her head, making her way from the door. She was done with the conversation it seemed. "You're going back to Twelve, end of discussion."

"Clint's not going to let it happen," Katniss called out as Natasha opened up the door, one foot already out of the room. "You know that he's not going to let me go."

Natasha turned her head over her shoulder, her green eyes focusing in on Katniss. "You have his eyes, you know," she muttered cryptically, before walking out and softly shutting the door behind her, like she'd never been there at all.


	21. a hand to hold

After Natasha, everyone came in to visit at their respected times; which naturally, was all at once. It was a little hard for all of them to be the first ones in the door, but eventually, they all managed to push their way into the room. Katniss had only been slightly stirring from the sleep that she'd been rendered into thanks to the dosages of morphine she was still on for the pain in her back by the time they'd come bombarding in the room. She smiled weakly at the sight of all of them stumbling over one another and trying to claim the chair next to her bed.

"Will you guys get out of my way—"

"Shh, we're not all supposed to be in here at once you know."

"I'd love to see Fury try and make me obey the rules."

"Way to enter quietly," Katniss muttered feebly. It took her a moment to find the strength in her to pull herself up from the bed, sitting up so that she could see all of them. The last time she'd seen any of them, they were covered in grime, sweat and blood, but now they all seemed pretty put together. Thor wasn't wearing his ridiculous Halloween costume and was in regular clothing, which seemed a little out of place, it being a new look for him. The rest of them were in their usual dressed-down clothes; Tony and the Black Sabbath t-shirt, Steve and Bruce's dress shirts, Clint in a plain grey t-shirt, all of them looking particularly tired.

Tony was the first one to make it to her side, reaching down and hugging her. Katniss had been slightly taken by surprise but she did her best to attempt at hugging him back. The last time she'd seen him, he was disappearing into a portal, as good as dead. He might not have been the most child-friendly of the group, but Tony did give good hugs; his arms were wrapped around her gingerly, as if he were scared that he would break her.

"Sorry baby bird," Tony admitted not-so-sheepishly, shrugging as he sat down on the foot of her hospital bed. "We're the Avengers, having an ounce of subtlety to us might as well be outlawed."

Steve had managed to win the contest of nabbing the chair next to her bed, doing his best to inconspicuously slide it up a little closer so he was in the vicinity of reaching for her hand limply lying down on the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked, disregarding Tony's comments per usual.

"You took a pretty rough blow back in New York," Bruce commented.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Big Bird over here was crying the whole time you were in surgery," Tony added in, smirking in Clint's direction. It was wiped quickly off his face by the time he caught sight of the daggers Clint was firing his way, Tony's shoulders slouching slightly in defeat as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Only because he was worried; very,  _very_  worried, like the rest of us."

Thor rolled his eyes, snorting. "If any one of us was crying, the evident answer is Stark."

"Was not."

"That you were."

"O- _kay_ ," Katniss interrupted, her voice still quiet as she did her best to reign in the kindergartners of teammates she had been bestowed with. "All of you were crying, we'll just leave it at that." Her fingers weakly stretched out before retracting once more, trying to find the best way to shake herself out of the drowsiness she was still trapped in from the morphine injections.

Clint had been standing over in the corner, staring at Katniss quietly with one of his hands holding his chin as he observed closely. Her eyes flickered over there, eyebrows furrowing. "Clint?" she asked. "Is everything okay?" All heads turned his way, and he seemed rather surprised that he'd been thrust under the spotlight like that.

"Just thinking," he mused.

"About?"

"What we're going to do with you after you get out of here," Clint replied, and a groan pushed its way out of her throat even though she hadn't entirely meant for it to.

"Don't tell me you sided with Natasha on all of her bullshit," she sighed.

"What? What bullshit?" Tony asked, his eyes darting all over the room. Clint seemed like he hadn't heard anything of this, stepping forward.

Katniss sighed. "Natasha's packing my things for me and mailing me back to the Middle of Nowhere the second she gets the chance." The looks on everyone's faces gave her some insight that they'd heard nothing of the sort, especially Clint. He looked near furious, his jaw setting and eyes going dark.

"No offense Barton, but what the hell is your girlfriend smoking?" Tony spat.

"She's not my girlfriend," Clint fired back just as quickly.

"You think she's going to actually go through with it?" asked Bruce.

Everyone looked to Clint and he just shrugged. "Don't know. Once Natasha sets her mind on something it's hard to change it. She sticks with the initial plan and drives it all the way home. Then again," he added, tilting his head in contemplation. "If there’s anyone who’s more persistent and hard-headed than her, it’s her child."

Steve hadn't taken his eyes off of Katniss, his expression for the most part blank. "Katniss is one of us; we can’t let her go through with this. We’ll stop her, find a way."

"Cap, I thoroughly doubt your shield's going to hold off Natasha."

"Do you ever say anything positive, Stark?

"This affects all of us, not just you!" Tony said, the edge growing in his voice. "Katniss is Clint's daughter, my goddaughter. You're not the only one who she means something to."

Bruce was standing next to the opposite of her bed, deep in thought. "As wrong as it is," he pondered aloud. "You can't blame Natasha for wanting to keep her safe."

"Are you seriously siding with Natasha?" Katniss asked softly, in utter disbelief. Bruce was the last person that she'd expected to swing for the other team, especially after the friendship that she hoped she still had with him had been formed.

He gestured around all of them with his hands. "Look around, the woman makes a point. You're in the medic wing because you got stabbed. You’ve got rehab scheduled for you the next few weeks once you’re back to moving, you're half-high on morphine still because it hurts you too much to roll over on your side. I know you don't want to be protected, but that's our job. We’re a team, and we protect each other, not because we doubt anyone’s abilities, but because we _care_."

Katniss winced slightly at the unintended harshness in the last sentence, Steve's hand instinctively moving further on the surface of her bed to grab hers. There was a small relief in feeling her hand being embraced by his; his hand being larger and wrapping all the way over and around and the sign being hidden from Clint by the natural barrier of the height in Katniss' hips. She still hadn't told Clint about the kiss, and she thoroughly doubted that Steve had made the first move to talk to him about it either. "He's right, you know," he said quietly. Katniss' head rolled to the side, her eyes squinting. "We were all scared you weren't going to make it."

"We thought you had died," Clint interrupted, his voice cold. He was staring at the floor, deeply in thought. "We sat in that waiting room for over four hours, not knowing if you were lying there lifeless on the operating table or what. If the doctors would be able to fix you, if we'd have to start making plans and decisions; we were stuck between a rock and a wall. Kid, you'll be lucky if you make it out of anyone's sight by choice here for the next few decades."

"Not if Natasha’s got anything to do with it, apparently," Katniss whispered.

"Katniss, no one is going to let her—"

"I can't go back!" she finally interrupted, her voice cracking even in the soft volumes she was speaking at. "You…you don't understand, I  _can't_  go back there. The one person that I cared about and cared about me is now dead and going back there...no one even knew I was gone, didn't care if I was dead or not. Besides, now that I know what it’s like to not be alone?" Katniss' voice got even quieter as she stared downwards, away from everyone else's gaze. "Going back there would just hurt too much."

Steve's thumb ran over the top of her hand reassuringly. "No one's going to let her do that to you," he tried again, his voice calm. "We're not going to give you up without any kind of fight." She lifted her eyes cautiously, locking them onto his and giving him a soft smile. "I'm not going to."

It was like every other eye in the room was on them, and Katniss could feel the rest of the people in her room burning holes in her sides. Clint peeled himself off of the wall, straightening up, and Tony's eyebrow lifted. The heat was already rising to her face as she kept her eyes on Steve, thinking maybe if she didn't acknowledge the others through eye contact, they'd stop looking. The silence in the room was deafening. "Um…" Bruce started awkwardly. "Did we miss something here?"

No one dared to speak, not even Tony, who never seemed to have a shortage of words tucked up inside that head of his. "Katniss?" Clint tried, the edge in his voice growing harder.

"Let’s just leave it at the fact we had a moment."

Steve's choice of words clearly weren't the right ones, because it was like he'd struck a match. Tony looked beyond elated, Bruce and Thor were both turning infinite volumes of red, Katniss looked as though she wanted to disappear on the spot and Clint had murder dancing in his eyes.

"How in the  _hell—"_

"Wow, Cap, didn't think you had it in you!"

"—fighting off Loki's army the whole time, hardly a moment for  _fornication_ —"

Thor's statement clued Katniss in as to what everyone was really going on about, and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head profusely. "Oh my god, are your minds really that far down in the gutter?" she groaned. "Nothing like that happened." A collective sigh went around the room, Katniss falling back against the pillow as she found it a bit tiring to keep holding herself upright.

"So," Tony sang out, rocking forward slightly. "What did happen then?"

She might have been stabbed in the back, but Katniss was still able to shoot him a look that could have sent him twelve feet under. "You don’t need details unless you’d like an arrow between your eyes," she growled.

" _Seriously_  Clint, she's pretty much Natasha's carbon copy with your eyes and my fabulous hair—"

"I'm perfectly capable of getting my bow right now," Clint threatened.

"Guys," Steve interrupted. "Do you think that you guys could maybe give us a moment, you know, alone?" Tony sprang off of the bed without missing a beat, a devilish grin on his face. He grabbed Thor by the wrist, dragging him out the door before anyone could say anything else.

"You kids have fun!" he chirped. Clearly, Tony was all for the alone time—Katniss would have to make sure he hadn't bugged the room later—but Bruce and Clint were both rather hesitant. Neither one of them moved an inch.

"Clint," Katniss said softly once she noticed that Clint was still staring at her, as if he thought she was crazy for suggesting he leave. "I want to talk to him."

"He can get in line," Clint mumbled. "I want to talk to you too." Katniss gave him a look, as if she were telling him that it would be okay if Steve got her first. After a moment, his shoulders dropped as he gave his compromise. "Fifteen minutes." With that, he went storming out of the room, Bruce awkwardly following him out. The door slammed shut behind him, most likely Clint's doing.

It was like an enormous weight had been taken off of her shoulders and that she could finally breathe again. There was nothing like seeing her teammates and knowing that physically, they were all okay, especially after New York, but nothing had changed. They still got annoying after ten minutes. Being alone with Steve also made things slightly tenser, as they couldn't keep avoiding the obvious any longer. Katniss closed her eyes, scratching the side of her head with her free hand. "I hope I didn't make him mad," Steve muttered.

"Even if he is mad, it's not your fault," Katniss said.

There was a moment of heavy silence hanging over their heads as the two of them did their best to ignore eye contact. It was almost like the rest of the team was in there, staring them down and waiting for someone to speak. "Steve," she began, sighing, but she found herself drowned out in the sound of his voice.

"You promised me you’d be fine," he burst, letting go of her hand and sliding back from her bed. She stared at him horrified. "You told me you were gonna be okay, that you were coming back, and when…when Romanoff said that you were  _dying_? We had to look at your body, Katniss, your body, unable to figure out if you were even still alive, had to help them load it on the Quinjet. And…and waiting, in that room, for something, waiting for them to come out and tell us that you hadn’t made it, you just don’t…if you had died, your last words being 'I'll be back' and you never did? Do you know what that does to a person?"

"I'm…I'm sorry," Katniss managed to utter out. "I didn't expect to be stabbed, you know. It's not like I knew that was going to happen."

Steve fell quiet, trying to catch his breath from his ranting. "I've lost too many people in my lifetime, Katniss. Too many people, and I thought I'd lost you too."

Katniss shook her head. "But you haven't. I’m still here, Steve.”

Steve stared at her, seeming to be at a loss for words. After what felt almost like an eternity, the chair he was sitting in moved closer towards her bedside, him reaching out for her hand. She met him halfway, her fingers curling around his. The feeling was natural, like it was supposed to have been that way. "So what now?" he asked.

“Um, rehab, I guess,” Katniss rattled off. “Fighting off Natasha at some point to keep me from going back home, and after that…I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions.”

One of his eyebrows lifted quizzically. “How about being normal for once?”

"We're not exactly normal people," Katniss pointed out, a small laugh following.

Steve shook his head. "No, I know that. I mean…the next step doesn’t have to be this craziness. The world isn’t just this, you know, not all the time. Not ever, if you don’t want it to. I can show you around; you've never been past your four walls, and even though I might not be the best tour guide in the world given the circumstances, New York hasn't changed any. It's still beautiful—isn't always on fire, you know. After you get done with rehab, the two of us can go to Central Park and spend some time together, just as normal people. Drink some lemonade, enjoy the day off—no taking orders or putting up with Stark's behavior, or anyone else’s for that matter."

“What’s lemonade?” Katniss asked. The look Steve gave her was one of appall, and she couldn’t help but to laugh at it. "So, just me and you then?" Katniss asked him, one of her eyebrows lifting out of curiosity. Steve nodded, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as confirmation.

"Me and you," he agreed, standing up to kiss her forehead.

* * *

Clint hadn't come back in the promised fifteen minutes; there had hardly been any time before a plethora of doctors came in and started giving her a round of her medications and checking on her stitches. It hadn't been much longer before she found herself growing sleepy, and Steve had told her not to worry about it, to just get some rest. The entire time she'd been fighting her closing eyes, trying to remind herself that Clint was coming back to talk to her. It hadn't worked; she was already too far under to pull herself out.

Her sleep was dreamless, however, she startled herself awake at the feeling of her falling off what she could have sworn was the Stark Tower. She was on high alert, eyes darting all over the room in a quick scan. The chair that Steve had been sitting in when she'd fallen asleep was pushed farther away from her bedside, and Steve was no longer sitting there. It was Clint, who was deep in thought as he stared at the side of her bed.

Trying to catch her breath, she watched as his eyes flicked up to hers. "You're awake," he said calmly. "Everything okay?"

"I…yeah," Katniss breathed. "Nightmare. I have them."

Clint nodded, inching the chair up a little closer to her. "Rogers said you wanted to see me and then you ended up falling asleep."

"You said fifteen minutes, I was holding onto that."

"Well, I'm here now," Clint said. "Katniss—"

"Look, I know," she interrupted, rather irritated that she was having this conversation for what felt like the millionth time today. "You're…pissed, you're upset, you're angry, you're glad I'm okay, you're all of that. I get that I almost died, Clint. And maybe I should have listened to you, but I'm not a little girl. I never was."

"I wasn't going to say that. I was _going_ to tell you that I'm sorry you felt like we doubted you by trying to protect you. You just have to understand that it's new territory for a lot of us. You’re the youngest, and more importantly, you're our child. If you die, your mother is going after everyone who had anything to do with it with the wrath of God dancing in her eyes."

Katniss bit down on her lower lip. "Have you uh, you know, talked to Natasha yet?"

Clint shook his head, rubbing his jaw. "Not yet, she's currently MIA." The look on Katniss' face must have been much worse than she figured, because he was quick to reassure her fears. "She's still on the Helicarrier; the woman might be mad but she's not stupid. She just doesn’t want to be found right now. My guess is, she's still doing her best to avoid that long conversation with Fury about where the hell she's been for the past five years."

"Australia," Katniss found herself saying. She shrugged. "Said she went to Australia after Budapest, moved around a lot after that."

"So not only has she told you what you're going to do after this, but she's telling you what happened to her?" Clint asked, the tone in his voice bitter.

Katniss nodded, before bringing up the Natasha thing once again. "Are you going to agree with her, ship me off too?"

The hurt in her voice was there as she tried to avoid eye contact with Clint. "You hunted for your own food when you were fourteen; I think you know what's best for you at this point in the game. Do I want to keep you safe and away from the madness this world brings along with it? Yeah. But I also know that sending you back isn't going to help you or anyone else anymore. Rogers would probably go after Natasha if that happened, and hate to admit it, but I'd be right there beside him."

"So…if I said that I wanted to join SHIELD after this, you'd let me?"

Clint's face fell. "We'll see about that one."

She couldn't help but to smile at him. "I'm glad I'm okay," she finally whispered.

"Me too, kid."

Clint stood up, reaching down to give her a hug. It wasn't like the first hug that he'd given her, or the hug that she'd given him after she'd gotten off of Stark Tower after her panic attack. This one wasn't one fueled by the tensions rising around them, but rather, one out of relief. Relief that they were both okay and that they would continue to be okay. She buried her face in his shoulder, sighing. "I love you," he muttered so softly that Katniss wasn't entirely sure that he'd said it to begin with.

Going out on a limb, she replied, "Love you too."

There was another moment of silence as he pulled away from her, rubbing the back of his neck. "Go back to sleep; I'll tell the others—mostly Tony, who's been demanding to come see you and give you Iron Man socks so you can apparently feel more at home—that you're just not up for company." Katniss snickered at the thought of Tony acting like his usual three year old self again; Natasha was right, his ego had definitely broken the fall. "I'm going to go and try to find Natasha, she and I have a lot to talk about."

Katniss nodded. "Good luck with that." She paused, before speaking up again. "I know I'm probably not one to…judge on this, but she does care about you. I can see it."

He gave her a sad smile, as if he actually doubted that statement. With that, he gave one of her shoulders a light squeeze before making his way towards the door. Clint's hand was hovering over the doorknob right about the time he stopped, turning back around. "Oh, and one more thing."

"Shoot."

"You and Rogers…whatever's happening there, I really don't want to know about it." Katniss' face turned red, a small smile on her face as she watch Clint grow more embarrassed the more he talked about it. "Just make sure he knows that if he hurts you, I'm a professional sniper and your mother’s an assassin."

Katniss laughed. "Don't worry; he knows I can kick his ass whenever I feel like it."

"'Atta girl."


	22. much ado about everything

The sound of the door opening caught Natasha's attention, but it wasn't enough for her to lift her head and face the intruder. She had a pretty good idea as to who it was, and she was almost positive she knew what they were there for. Letting her hand brush down the side of her leg, she cleared her throat. "I've made my decision, you're not changing my mind," she finally declared.

Clint crossed his arms over his chest, burning holes into the back of her flaming head of hair. "And I've made mine," he countered back. "She's not leaving." He fell silent for a moment, taking a few deep breaths before speaking again. "Have you lost your mind, Natasha? You can't just send her back, not after all of the things that she's seen, the things that she knows. She's already a target. Sending her back defenseless is a surefire way to get her  _killed—"_

Red hair whipped around as Natasha laid eyes on Clint, hurtling daggers his way. "It is not my fault that she was exposed to all of this. I was the one who threatened Fury within an inch of his life if he recruited her and he did it anyways. That doesn't change anything, I don't want her here."

"You don't want her here," Clint repeated dumbly, his shoulders slouching in defeat. Natasha began to stride forward, the fire raging in her eyes.

"I didn't fake my death for nothing, Clint. It was to keep you safe, to keep her safe, to keep everyone that I cared about  _safe_. I'm sure she's a fabulous person—"

"She is," Clint interrupted Natasha's rant. "And you wouldn't know that, because I'm almost positive that you won't even give her the time of day."

Natasha scoffed. "You’re being ridiculous, Clint."

"I’m not the one being unreasonable here, Natasha!" The pair stared at each other for a moment, not bothering to speak and break the silence that had fallen over them. Neither of them was sure what to say; this was the first real time alone that they had had since she had shown up in New York, and it was almost like she was still doing her best to avoid him. "Fury might have made a huge mistake pulling her into this, but it's not like it's a bad thing."

"Why?" Natasha snapped. "Enlighten me, Clint, tell me how this isn't a bad thing!"

"We never got to know her! We held her all of one time, Natasha,  _one time_. This is our second chance to make it right with her. She's old enough now to know what she's getting herself into, it works out for everyone."

"I don't care how old she is, Clint, I'm not going to sit around and watch someone else, someone I care about, die."

Clint shook his head, angry with Natasha not because she was refusing to comply with what he wanted, but because she was doing what she always did: rearing her horns. "The girl's been using an arrow for years, hunting for her own food, she’s not some defenseless child. Katniss can handle it, Nat, she can survive in the real world if she managed to survive that hellhole we put her in, the insanity that was New York. She's proved herself capable."

Natasha bit down on her lip, wanting to open her mouth and continue the argument but couldn't find the words. Clint stepped closer towards her, his face softening. "Dammit, Nat, why are you shutting me out  _again_? Wasn't playing dead for five years enough for you?"

"I came back for you!" she finally yelled. "I came back for you and…and for her. I knew she was a hunter, I was the one who left her one of your bows when I went to go see her, I knew that she could handle herself, I _know_ that." Natasha took a step forward, jabbing one of her fingers into the cavity of Clint's chest. "But you were there on Stark Tower, when she almost died. She's sitting in a hospital room Clint, waiting until she’s strong enough to start her fucking _rehabilitation_ _program_ for a stab wound to the back that we thought would kill her, paralyze her at best. I'm not about to sit through that again. I can't sit around and invite people to kill my daughter, to watch her get hurt again and be that helpless like I was in New York. Like we were in Budapest again, just sitting ducks; this was like Budapest all over again."

There was a shortage of words on Clint's end, trying to take in everything that she'd said and let it process. Instead, he found himself going right back to Budapest. "You and I remember Budapest very differently." One of Natasha's eyebrows rose in confusion. "When you left and never came back? I looked for  _days._ Mission be damned, I threw the whole thing looking for you, and I wouldn't have left if Fury hadn't extracted me himself. It was hell, Nat, letting them stamp your file KIA and not being able to do a damn thing about it, having to _accept it_."

"I'm so—"

"Don't apologize," Clint snapped. "The time for apologies has come and gone, and I'm not interested in hearing you apologize for Budapest. I want to know what the hell happened to you while you were gone, why you're still shutting me out even though you just walked in the door." Natasha was silent again, her eyes locked on him as she tried her best to formulate words. Clint threw his hands up in the air, letting them slap his thighs on their way down. "What, are you planning on disappearing again? What'll it be this time, a plane crash? Dramatic drowning sequence? Do I need to prepare myself for this all over again?"

"I'm not leaving you," Natasha whispered firmly. "I was gone for five years and I regretted every minute of it. Believe me, I wanted to break the cover story and come see you—"

"Oh yeah, I bet you did—"

"—but it did what I needed for it to; besides, Tony had spent too much money into making the story legitimate—"

"—and since when did we begin caring about Tony's financial wellbeing?"

"Clint!" Natasha finally yelled, exasperated with his rapid-fire retorts. "Quit thinking I'm going to walk away again!"

"Really Natasha? Because is it that far of an idea?" Clint pointed at the door over his shoulder, his voice growing louder. "Every time you walk out of a room now, part of me always wonders if you're ever going to come back!"

"I did, didn't I?!"

"It's not just me who feels that way, either!" he roared. "Fury never stopped comparing every agent trained in espionage here to you; he never stopped comparing  _anyone_  to you! Coulson  _died_  thinking you were dead, Natasha! And that girl in that hospital room, your daughter? She thinks the world of you and you've probably said all of five words to her, telling her you're shipping her right back to where you sent her off to after delivery!"

"I doubt that—"

"Do you? Do you really? She went against everything Fury told her to do _just_ to find out who you were; the only reason she agreed to come on this goddamn mission was because she wanted to know who you were. She doesn’t want to stay here because of the…technology, SHIELD, the good food. All she wants is to get to know you, she just wants the family she never got the chance to have—"

"—the safe house—"

"Fuck the safe house, Natasha, she needs you! _I_ need you!" Clint's outburst left him breathless, him taking deep breaths as Natasha stared at him, partially horrified. "Fuck…I need you, Tasha," he sighed, rubbing his jaw. "Hasn't been the same without you and now that you're here…I just want you, I _need_ you back."

"Clint," Natasha's voice was barely audible as she stared up at him. "We agreed—"

Clint cut her off once again. "That was five years ago, Tasha. Things have changed." He didn't waste any time in closing the space between them, either hand resting on both of her cheeks and bringing her face to his. It was a testy kiss; he had no idea what she was going to do over it, if she'd kill him or kiss him back. It was like diving back into that same old familiar routine, like there had never been five years of time between them and the last time they'd done this. It felt like a few days, maybe a few hours at most. He could feel her lips ever-so-lightly pressing back against his, cautiously. Natasha's hands brushed over his sides as he pulled away, staring at her.

"она остается," Natasha muttered in her native Russian, a sign of the intimacy of the moment, especially for her.

"а вы?"

"я никогда не оставит."

* * *

Getting one teenage girl into a wheelchair proved to take a village—despite all of Katniss' protests that _yes_ , she was perfectly capable of sitting up and sliding off of the bed into a wheelchair at this point in her recovery. No one seemed to hear that; instead, Steve and Tony were both pulling her upper limbs in all sorts of various directions, attempting to get her off the bed. She was pretty sure she'd not-so-accidentally smacked Tony in the face and maybe clawed the side of his face as he tried to sling her arm over his shoulder. The Avengers were pretty good at avenging and protecting things like the earth, but in no way were they qualified to be caretakers. Ever. In any dimension whatsoever.

"Mind telling me where it is we're going and why I have to be carted there in a wheelchair?" Katniss asked as Tony pushed her through the corridors, Steve trailing alongside as best he could in the narrow hallway.

"Fury's having a team meeting, and clearly, he thinks that you're at the point in your recovery that you need to get out of bed. That, or he didn't think holding a meeting in your hospital room with such close quarters and Natasha pissed with everyone was a wise idea," Tony rattled off matter-of-factly. Katniss rolled her eyes at the sound of her mother's name being brought up. Things were still touchy there; Natasha hadn't been back by to see how she was holding up. It was almost like she was still dead.

She snorted. "Oh what, Natasha's actually letting me go to the group meetings? Thought she would have fought that too," she muttered bitterly. Tony laughed behind her, and Steve looked down at her with some sort of look in his eyes. "What? You know it's true. She wants me to live in that hospital room, and if it's not there, it's Twelve."

"She sure does like isolation, that Romanoff," Steve commented, focusing his train of sight back in front of him.

"And that surprises you any?" Tony said. They reached the doorway to the meeting room, a stone faced Natasha cutting them off as she stormed into the room. Tony swallowed. "She's also very…"

"Aggressive?"

"We'll go with that."

Tony pushed Katniss over the threshold over the door, the room not the dark and cold quarters she'd expected it to be. It reminded her more of the one on the bridge, open and with lots of windows allowing the sunlight to pour in. There wasn't that much sunlight, but it was nice to at least see something other than the harsh artificial glare of those washing-out lights installed in her room. Natasha was sitting down on the far end of the table opposite from a deep-in-thought Thor; closest to what Katniss assumed was the head, where Fury would be whenever he decided to grace them with his presence. Clint and Bruce were standing against a wall, talking to each other and Clint threw a quick glance and smile over at his daughter once his eyes laid on her.

"Alright, I'm gonna need for Fury to hurry his pirate ass in here, you don't need to be exposed to sunlight for too long or you might disintegrate into ash," Tony said solemnly, obviously messing around with her and the outrageously tight boundaries Natasha had set for her. Katniss had expected for her mother to whirl around, shooting death glares in Tony's direction or even hurtling out curses, but she stayed still as a statue in her seat. Swiveling around in her wheelchair as best she could without hurting herself, she could see that Tony had slouched down in defeat. "Damn."

"Nice to see you too, Stark." Fury breezed in, not bothering to acknowledge anyone else as he strode across the room towards the head of the table. No one else moved to take a seat, instead, just crossed their arms and waiting for whatever it was he was planning. "Miss Ev—Katniss, it's actually nice to see you. Recovering nicely, I hope?"

"Little too stuffy in my room for my liking, but you may as well have stationed guards at my door and shackled me to the bed," she replied with a cheerful smile on her face. Tony snickered, and Fury didn't seem at all phased by her remark.

"I called all of you here to discuss our next steps," Fury began.

"Next steps?" Katniss voiced her disbelief.

Clint glanced over at Katniss, shrugging one of his shoulders. "Mission debriefing; welcome to the wonderful world of SHIELD, kiddo."

Fury continued on over Clint, rearranging files that he'd dropped on the table and Natasha picking up no sooner than they'd hit the table. "Loki—Thor, terms of punishment you're willing to subject him to here?"

"None," came Thor's stiff voice. "Loki will face Asgardian justice; he is mine to deal with. Not yours. Your people are not equipped nor prepared to punish Loki, not in the midst of the Chitauri's lasting effects."

Fury stared at Thor for a moment, before moving past it. "Fine by me."

"So we all don't get a turn going after reindeer games?" Tony asked, to which he was greeted with a stern look by Fury. "Sorry, I'm just trying to be thorough. You guys try to keep these debriefs thorough, right, Romanoff?" Natasha ignored him, as if he wasn't even there.

"What about the Tesseract, what are you planning on doing with it?" Bruce brought up, crossing his arms over his chest. "Nuclear warfare is sort of a moot point at this stage."

Natasha lifted her head from one of the files, looking around the room and intentionally skipping right over Katniss. "The Tesseract is property of SHIELD, we're at the discretion of the Council as to what to do with the energy," she said.

"Well that's a load of bullshit if I've ever heard any," Tony snorted.

"You humans have already shown great irresponsibility at maintaining and harboring the Tesseract energy, it belongs back on Asgard," argued Thor. "This…Council does not understand what sort of damage they have done by allowing your agency to attempt at harnessing the Tesseract. You have allowed other realms to see what sort of warfare your planet is ready for—"

"—listen to Shakespeare, he has a point; does anyone else remember that alien invasion where we all almost sort of died?"

"It's a  _moot point_  arguing this," Natasha spat back at Tony finally, her eyes alive with anger. "We have no control. It isn't our decision to make." She then turned to Thor, her demeanor changing. "Thor—"

"Lady Natasha, I do not mean to offend you, but the Tesseract belongs back on Asgard."

"So basically, you just want to take the Tesseract and the war prisoner back home to Dad?" Tony asked, and while Thor's face twisted slightly at his wording, he nodded.

"There is no other way for me to travel back to Asgard without the Tesseract; when the Bifrost was destroyed, the Tesseract was an alternative as to accessing other realms. I suspect that was how Loki gained entrance to Midgard," he explained.

Clint, who had been deep in thought and not bothering to enter the conversation, stepped forward. "So if those were the only two ways to travel to Earth, how did you get here? You didn't have the Bifrost, and I thoroughly doubt there are other Tesseract cubes lying around the universe."

"Dark magic," Thor stated plainly. "And I do not wish to conjure up any to send myself and my brother back home. The Tesseract is best kept out of reach from your people."

Everyone's eyes focused in on Fury, who was shaking his head. "God's got a point," he said finally when he caught notice of Natasha's persistent glaring. "Loki and the Tesseract both go back with Thor then? Everyone in agreement?"

If anyone wanted to protest that notion, they kept their mouth shut. Katniss' eyes wandered over to where her mother was, and she could see that she had clammed right up. Her eyes were focused in on the files in front of her, shuffling through the contents and trying to ignore everyone else around her. "Then that's what we'll go with," Fury declared. Everyone seemed to take that as the notion to go ahead and leave, but Fury was quick to stop them in their tracks. "There's…also something else I wanted to address with you all."

Their heads all slowly turned back towards the director as he talked. "We've already taken to burying Coulson, but we haven't arranged any kind of service. Too much attention on New York right now, and since that's where Coulson wanted to be buried once the time came, we didn't want to draw any speculation."

"What are you asking us to do?" Steve finally asked as Fury paused in the middle of his train of thought.

"I think he would have appreciated a visit." Straightening up the files on the desk and snatching the one Natasha had from her, he picked all of them up in his arms and nodded in their direction. "You're free to go."

Katniss looked up at Steve, who appeared about as confused as she felt. "I'm not the only one who thinks that was probably the weirdest thing ever, right?" she asked, eyes flitting over to Tony.

"Scarily enough, I've seen weirder," he finally uttered out. Natasha stood up from her seat at the table, crossing the room. Steve, Tony and Katniss all braced themselves, stiffening as she grew closer and closer to them. It turned out that she wasn't leaving, she was instead meeting them. Katniss could hear Tony swallowing hard.

"Do you mind if I wheel her back to her room?" Natasha asked Tony in a strangled sort of voice before her eyes flickered down to where Katniss was sitting, the confusion scribbled on her face. Tony looked down at Katniss, who was sending a thousand signals with her eyes that all said the same thing—no.

"Sure, Romanoff," Tony squeaked, dragging Steve off to go talk to Thor.

Natasha didn't say anything as she wrapped her hands around the handles of the wheelchair, slowly beginning to push. Katniss was stripped for words; on one hand, she wanted to yell at Tony for letting this happen, she wanted to try and strike up a conversation with her mother, hell, she wanted to offer to get up and walk. Anything would have been better than the heavy, awkward silence that floated over them as Natasha rolled her over the threshold and back into the hallway leading to her room. Katniss sighed internally. It was back to hell.

She wasn't pushing her fast; sure, Tony hadn't exactly been attempting to run people down with her in the wheelchair, but the speed Natasha was going at was slow enough for other people to step _on_  them. "You start rehab tomorrow," Natasha finally said. "Did they tell you?"

"No, they didn't," Katniss replied softly. "And after that, I'm back to home sweet home, right?"

The bitter tone was enough to shut someone down, but Katniss momentarily forgot that her attitude was inherited from the person she was thrusting it upon. "You're not going back," Natasha finally admitted. Katniss didn't believe her ears, instantly whipping around in her seat. She winced in pain; the stitches and lack of activity had left her stiff as a board. She tried to readjust herself in her seat so she was facing Natasha at a more comfortable angle.

"What? I’m not?" she repeated dumbly.

Natasha nodded. "You aren’t." The smile on Katniss' face kept growing as she kept talking. "Clint, like always, is right—you've been taking care of yourself long before we decided we were all going to try and baby a seventeen year old who's dealt with just as much as we have. I can't make your decisions for you, and if you want to stay here, then I'm not going to stop you."

Katniss was beyond elated, wondering if she was hearing correctly or if this was even happening. "And…I want to get to know you too, just like Clint does," Natasha admitted.

"So, wait," Katniss said, trying to disguise the excitement in her voice. "You two are going to let me go through with joining SHIELD too?"

"One step at a time." Katniss' face fell slightly at the sound of that, the argument already formulated on her tongue as Natasha continued talking. "Go spend some time adjusting to the real world. Go…be with Steve, you're young. Accustom to our world first, you've got all kinds of time to join SHIELD. We’ll figure out living arrangements once you’re given a bill of health; at least this way, you're still with us and not in the line of direct danger. Tony’ll be elated to have you around," Natasha said as they reached Katniss' room.

The wheelchair stopped next to her bed, Katniss resting her hand on the surface of it. Natasha didn't move as Katniss began to try and pull herself up onto her bed. She struggled, her upper body strength failing her since her arms felt like they were made of gelatin. "Um…" she muttered out, slightly embarrassed that she was now having to ask for assistance. Natasha caught on pretty quickly, allowing one of Katniss' arms to sling over her shoulders and reaching underneath her legs and sweeping her up.

It proved to be a bit of a struggle, since Natasha was a bit smaller in height than Katniss. But she managed to help get Katniss onto her bed, carefully sitting her down and kicking the wheelchair back all the way into the wall. Katniss laughed slightly as she lay back against her pillows. "Everything alright?" Natasha asked, letting her hands brush over her thighs as they dropped to her side.

"Yeah," Katniss said, nodding. "Yeah, everything's just fine."

There was another pause of silence, before Katniss smiled at the redhead. "Thanks."

What happened next was relatively fast and if Katniss hadn't been fully aware at the moment, she would have missed it. Natasha leant down, her arms extended as she pulled her daughter into a careful hug, arms gingerly brushing over her shoulders. It didn't last longer than a few seconds, pulling away afterwards awkwardly. But it was more than enough for mother and daughter, more than enough indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations:
> 
> "she stays."
> 
> "and you?"
> 
> "i will never leave."


	23. first steps

Natasha was doing her best to avoid Fury, spending most of her time holed up in Katniss' room. Apparently, Fury wasn't planning on stepping a foot near her hospital room because rumor had it that if he so much as came near her, Clint and Tony…well, they had a few ideas up their sleeve they were itching to try out on him. Katniss wouldn't have put it past them to gang up on Fury. So Natasha would sit in the corner of Katniss' room, working on debrief—since she had disappeared for five years, Fury's first order was putting her straight away to paperwork—while Katniss slept or did some reading of her own. Natasha had dug up everything she could on Katniss' birth and the safe house that Fury had assigned her to, all of which was stolen behind Fury's back.

Her transition into rehab was complicated; she had yet to be moved out of her hospital room and couldn't return to her bunk until after the first few sessions, and even then she would be assigned into an out of the way suite on the Helicarrier's medical floor. Another part of Natasha's punishment was being given so much paperwork by a certain deadline (Fury loved a solid deadline) that she wasn't able to help Katniss to her rehab sessions. Katniss loved Clint, but having him go with her didn't sound like the most appealing option. Clint was still coming down from his spiel with Loki, being possessed and all, and she didn't want to add the extra stress onto him. Bruce didn't  _need_  any stress—Katniss doubted the Big Guy enjoyed yoga and such—Thor was about as understanding of 'Midgard customs' as she was, and asking Tony to accompany her was to have a death wish.

Steve was the only plausible option, and even though Clint's face had twisted up in several different ways—Tony had just laughed wickedly, clearly he thought it was funny before Clint promptly whacked him upside the head—it was ultimately decided that he was the best choice to accompanying her to rehab every day. Steve had the patience of Job when it came to her, or anything, really. He could even sit there and take all of Tony's taunts at dinner, most of which were crude sexual innuendos that made Katniss go red as Natasha's hair and lit fires in Clint's eyes, not even batting an eyelash.

Katniss' main laceration started a fair bit under her left shoulder blade, a place on her back that was several inches long. Because doctors had been anticipating the possibility of paralysis from the waist down and had done their best to keep her off of her feet ever since she'd woken up, she and Steve learned from the first day talking to Dr. Maxfield that a lot of her rehabilitation would be physical. They wanted to start physical, since they weren’t still out of the woods on the paralysis likelihood; her muscles could lock up for good, and her legs would either be out of the picture or never be up to par again. Of course, what that meant was a lot of walking.

It wore her out. She'd been bedridden for the better part of a week and a half and the last time she'd used her legs, it had been quite a fair bit of movement. Dr. Maxfield wanted her to do a lot of walking, several laps around the medic floor of the Helicarrier a day in addition to whatever else he thought she was ready for. It didn't take her long to tire, having to catch her breath as her legs felt as though they were made of jelly and her back muscles locking up. Steve was there for her the whole way, never rushing her. Instead, he took the opportunity to ask her more about her life before SHIELD, what she really wanted to learn about the world now that she lived in a new one of those, anything to get her mind off of the pain coursing through her veins as she slowly made her way along.

"So, what are you going to do about the last name?" he asked her one day, his hand clutching onto one of hers and helping guide her along. Katniss glanced over at him, puzzled. "I, no, I mean are you going to change it to Barton or Romanoff, keep it the same; what's your plan there?"

Katniss smiled at Steve's rambling. "I don't know," she finally responded, a one shouldered shrug following suit. "It'd be weird for anyone to call me anything other than Everdeen, but at the same time…it'd just be weird for me to have the last name of a stranger. And even then, whose name would I take? They're not married or anything."

Steve's face showed signs of his visibly pondering it. "Barton-Romanoff," he offered. "Romanoff-Barton. I think Tony's secretly hoping and praying that you'll tell Natasha you just want to take his last name so she'll make more of a priority to marry him, I suppose."

"What's new?" Katniss snorted, rolling her eyes. He followed suit, a small laugh accompanying hers. "You really think the two of them will get married? Natasha doesn't seem like she's the…marrying type."

"I don't know, people can surprise you. You can go your whole life thinking that you'll never be with someone, that you'll just grow old by yourself and then that one person will come along, and everything changes…" Steve drifted off, his eyes doing the same. "Maybe Agent Barton's that for her."

Katniss shrugged, not really having thought about it before. "Maybe," she agreed, her already slowing pace coming to a halt as the muscles in her back seemed to lock up again and freeze her there in the middle of her steps. Wincing, she bent forward and tried to catch her breath. The hand he had holding hers gave a squeeze of reassurance, and Steve's other hand was on her back, doing his best to keep her from falling. Her teeth ground together. "I can’t wait until this is past me. Never thought I'd admit it, but I actually miss running."

"This isn't going to last forever, though," he pointed out.

"Let’s hope."

The walking portions of her rehab grew in length every day, as she began to tackle more and more distance without tiring herself out so drastically that she felt she'd need a nap afterwards. Steve was there for every little step, even if it took them three hours or a few minutes. Different days had different distances and times with them. It was very discouraging at times; there was the potential that her walking would never be as good as it had been, that she’d have to resort to using a cane for a period of time or potentially for the rest of her life. It was all thanks to fucking Loki; even when he wasn’t around anymore, he still had a hold on her life somehow.

Dr. Maxfield claimed that she was a determined patient, and the last time that he'd worked with someone so diligent and driven was Natasha after a mission when she was shot in the upper thighs and damaged some of her joints. Natasha had been even more impatient than Katniss, which was utterly believable, and wanted to be back to normal and in the field as soon as she could. Katniss wasn't surprised that she was being compared to her mother, not in the slightest. Now that she was around, she could see the similarities between them plain as day.

The number of visitors that came to see her each night was a little overwhelming. Natasha used her room as an escape from Fury's watchful eye, Clint was merely an observer and even though he'd probably deny it if asked, he enjoyed being in their joint presence. Tony took it upon himself to be the nightly entertainment, since in his mind, being stuck in the room every night after rehab meant that she was in dire need of cheering up. It was nerve-shredding, Tony's attempts at being the cool uncle. His ideas of entertainment included things like pestering Natasha and Clint with endless animal jokes, playing all parts in his one man band while Black Sabbath blared in the background, or, one that he really got a kick out of, bringing in a giant white board and forcing everyone to play games like Catchphrase, deeming it Avengers Family Game Night. No one got into it except Thor, who was beyond fascinated.

Katniss could really only stand Natasha and Steve's company whenever she went back to her room. She was never looking to entertain company once she was done with treatment for the day, or to _be_ entertained by Tony the Great. Eventually, there was more to deal with in terms of her recovery; Dr. Maxfield had started her on cryotherapy a few days after she was adjusted to the walking, which required Katniss to lie on her stomach while a bag of ice sat on the stab wound for anywhere between half an hour and seventy minutes. It was terribly boring, and there were moments when she’d actually hope for Tony to appear and ask if she wanted to see a magic trick or something.

"Having fun?" she called over her shoulder, her voice muffled by the pillow. Natasha was stationed in her corner, filling out more paperwork—more than likely from an old mission or from New York, since that file within itself was as large as a few unabridged dictionaries stacked on top of another. Natasha let out a hum of disapproval, clicking her pen. Katniss wiggled around on the bed. "What are you doing?"

"Don’t move," Natasha cautioned. "If you move that ice pack, we have to start all over and Maxfield has my head. I like my head."

Katniss groaned. "What's the big deal with this whole cold treatment? It has nothing to do with me getting better; it just makes me uncomfortable for a half hour. Didn’t think my homework would require me to lay in bed _even more_ than usual.

"It helps the swelling," Natasha informed her. "You're already going to have a nasty scar back there because of what that son of a bitch did to you, the doctors figured they might as well make it a little less…"

"Hideous?" Katniss finished for her, adjusting her head so she was facing Natasha. She nodded. "Great, can't wait for that."

Natasha gave her a look. "At least yours is on your back. I have one on my abdomen, kissed all bikini days goodbye after that," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, because you obviously look as though you'd look horrible in a bikini," Katniss drawled sarcastically. The crack of a grin appeared on Natasha's face. "Wow, you really do know how to smile. We all thought it was just a myth."

Natasha was already immersing herself into the file once more, the sound of her pen scribbling over the paper faint. She didn't take her eyes off of her work as she spoke. "Believe it or not, I'm very capable of having human emotions. It's harder for me than most, but I'm not a stone wall. I know how to appreciate something genuinely funny. Unfortunately, everyone on this team lacks skills in conjuring up something that fits that description."

"Fury's really got you working overtime, doesn't he?" Katniss pointed out, bringing one of her hands out from underneath her stomach and gesturing towards the piles of paper and bulky folder resting in Natasha's lap. Natasha shrugged.

"It's what happens when you disappear for five years," she explained. "He wasn't necessarily the happiest person when he found out that I was actually alive. Even though Fury's about as terrifying to me as Tony is, he's got superiority. You were still asleep, but I got some…grand lecture like I was twelve or something in front of Clint, how irresponsible and deceitful I'd been over the years, along with a few other choice adjectives. Fury told me as a welcome back present and a way to reaffirm all of my knowledge of SHIELD protocols, I'd get to do paperwork. Lucky for him, I don't really mind tedious tasks."

Katniss scoffed. "That makes one of us. I'd much rather be in the gym right now, shooting or something. After this nightmare, never expect me to sit in a bed for hours on end." All she wanted was to be able to move properly again, really; the fear of not being able to walk properly hindered her wishes to continue archery or even become a SHIELD agent in the future. She could feel a few drops of condensation from the bag rolling onto her back and down her spine, doing her best to reach behind her and swipe them all away. Natasha sent a half smile her way.

"Whenever you're back on your feet, you can show me how you shoot, or something like that. I didn't get to see enough of you in action in New York, seeing as how I was too busy trying to either ignore the fact you were standing in front of me or killing aliens before they got to me first."

A genuine smile spread across Katniss' lips as she peeked over the edge of her arm at her mother, who had looked up from her paperwork to meet her eyes. "I'd really like that," she admitted.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing, Stark," Katniss groaned. Tony seemed to be much too happy for any good to come out of it; an overly giddy Tony was now enough warning sign that something potentially disastrous was right around the bend. He held onto her hand—her walking was still somewhat shaky after a week and a half of intense therapy, but it was improving drastically considering—leading her through the hallways. She knew that she was supposed to be taking it easy still, but of course, Tony viewed this as the perfect opportunity to break her out of her prison cell.

"Just trust me, baby bird, I think you're going to like what I have to show you," Tony replied smugly as they began their descent down a flight of stairs. With each step, Katniss was more and more ready to kill him. Steps were not a part of her rehab program; in fact, she'd been told to avoid them at all costs, and here Tony was letting her go first down a flight of them. It took her a few minutes to make it to the bottom as she clutched to the railing with a white knuckled grip.

"Yes, if I don't kill you first," she gritted out through her clenched teeth. "Or Natasha; when she finds out you made me take the stairs, she's going to be all over you."

Tony dismissed that with the wave of his hand. "We can take the elevator back up, she'll never know the difference." Katniss stared at him bewildered as they continued on through the corridors.

She hadn't really understood where they were until they reached a set of sliding glass doors, opening when Tony provided his handprint to a scanner. "Is this yours and Bruce's temp lab after the other one exploded?" she asked, looking around. Tony nodded eagerly as he strode across the room to retrieve one of the monitors. Her hand resting on one of the lab tables, she dragged her feet slowly and got closer to the screen he'd spun around for her.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" she asked, squinting her eyes to get a better look. She could see a few symbols; one that looked like Steve's shield and another that looked like an hourglass, but other than that she was confused as to what it was. Tony, however, was standing next to the monitor and beaming.

"The finalized floor plans for  _Avengers_ Tower," he said proudly, and the cogs began whirring in her head.

"Wait," Katniss said, holding out one of her hands. "You renamed Stark Tower Avengers Tower? Why?"

Tony shrugged. "Face it: as much as we all claim to get on each other's nerves, we're pretty much family, some of us more literally than others. And I figured that since a large portion of the tower was destroyed during New York anyways, why not remodel it so that all of you can have a place to stay whenever you come to New York?" Katniss watched him as he swiped downwards, a row of all the symbols embedded in circles appearing. There was Thor's hammer, the hourglass, a bow and arrow, the Iron Man mask, a fist, and fire.

Her eyebrows furrowing in confusion, she pointed to the bow and arrow. "Is that one mine?" she asked.

"Nope," said Tony, shaking his head. "Yours is this one." She watched carefully as his finger hovered over the fire symbol, pressing it gently as the floor plans for what she assumed was her suite at the Tower appeared.

"Why am I fire?" she asked, puzzled.

"Bruce and I both agreed that the bow and arrow wasn't enough to symbolize you," Tony admitted. "You're our girl on fire—even though that's not necessarily your contribution to the team, you’re infectious; you make us all wanna fight as hard as you, be better. I'm pretty sure even if you were on fire, you wouldn't get burned. That's just how strong you are."

Katniss grinned wickedly. "Aw, Tony," she taunted. "Is this you being sentimental?"

His face twisted up into a pained expression. " _God_  no."

"Alright, sure."

As Tony allowed her the chance to flip through the floor plans and see some of the sketches and images from the building itself, he decided that it would be as good a time as ever to ask her more personal questions. "So, what are you going to do after we ship Loki and Thor off next week?" he asked her, leaning up against the lab table.

Katniss shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not really sure. I don't really want to come back to the Helicarrier, seeing as how I’m not interested in being bunkmates with Fury. Maybe I'll stay in New York or something; Steve said that that's where he was staying, and you're there all the time anyways. You’ve got the Tower."

"Bruce will be there too," Tony noted. "I managed to get him on board with staying with me for a little while and working, doing research and all that. Big Guy finally thinks he's got a handle on himself, so he'll be around."

"Is he staying in the Tower?"

Tony shrugged, twirling a pen that he'd randomly picked up off of the table between his fingers. "Don't see why he wouldn't. And you know that you're more than welcome to stay there with me. I actually recommend you staying with me. Pepper would get a kick out of having another girl around, seeing as how Happy, Rhodey and I aren't always the best company."

"Who?" Katniss asked, blinking a few times. Tony grinned.

"You'll know if you decide to live at the Tower." He leaned over, resting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a firm shake. "Seriously, Katniss. Come stay at the Tower; I want you there, and I know that Steve really wants for you to stay in New York with him, too. I think he actually likes you; kid never shuts up about you."

Katniss blushed at the thought of Steve talking about her when she wasn't around. It was a nice thought, but she tried not to hold onto that thought for too long. Otherwise, it would read on her face and she'd never hear the end of it from Tony. "Yeah," she finally found her lips moving in agreement. "Okay, I'll stay with you in Avengers Tower." The smile grew on Tony's face as she paused, before speaking up again. "On one condition."

"Lay it on me, birdie."

"First sexual…anything out of you, I will walk out and burn the place behind me. You got it?"

Tony just laughed.


	24. end of the beginning

"You're moving in with  _Tony_?! _"_  

Clint was taking quite well to the news that Katniss had made her decision to move in Avengers Tower full time. Natasha was sitting in a chair, casually flipping through a file folder that Katniss knew she wasn't reading a word of, just trying to put idle hands to use. A low sigh pushed past her lips as she ran one of her hands through her loose hair, Katniss trying to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

"I told you this twenty minutes ago, why are you still in disbelief?" It was true; Katniss had gotten the news around to him almost a half an hour ago when he stopped by to check in after her morning session of rehab. The session had been successful in her opinion; Dr. Maxfield praised her on her accomplishments and how efficiently she was now moving around on her own. All good things had screeched to a halt when she'd walked into her suite—one that she was eager to be rid of at this point—and saw Natasha sitting in the waiting chair, informing her Clint would be returning in approximately three minutes. Natasha wasn't wrong, she never was.

Katniss could tell that Natasha had more than likely expected this reaction from Clint when she admitted she'd made plans to move with Tony, judging by the smirk on her face. Clint didn't accept the idea as a legitimate one initially, looking around and expecting for the punch line to be delivered in the physical form apparently for a few moments. It was then that it began to settle with him, and that was when he began verbally repeating the question over and over again. Clearly, there was something about moving in with Tony Stark that was acknowledged by Clint but wasn't fully processed yet in his mind.

Clint whipped around, his eyes wide as he looked for Natasha for some sort of support. "She's moving in with Tony?" Natasha didn't even take her eyes off of her reading, nodding tersely. "And you're just…okay with this?" he spat out, bewildered.

"It's not like we're sending her off to live with wolves, Barton," Natasha rationalized. Clint was having none of it.

"Nat, he might as well be," he retorted back. Katniss groaned, falling back against the pillows on her bed.

Natasha gave up on going back to reading, glaring up at Clint. "He is her godfather. Stark Tower—"

"Avengers Tower," Katniss corrected her mother.

"Whatever, it's one of the most secure buildings there ever was. Tony's shown me the blueprints, I've seen it all; if you tried to touch it, Tony would be waiting for you with an automatic by the time you got through the window. Not to mention she'll be with three people off the team and we can go see her whenever we want."

One of Clint's eyebrows lifted out of curiosity. "Wait, how do you know we have permission to come and go as we please?" he asked.

Natasha made a face. "Like Fury’s going to try and hold me back once I’ve made up my mind," she replied, and that seemed to be a good of enough explanation for Clint. He was quick to find something else to criticize though, gesturing out towards Katniss.

"So we're going to let her live with a maniac?"

Natasha groaned loudly and the sound of Katniss' hands meeting her face reverberated through the room. "God, he's just as sane as anyone else here, and you know it. You'd be perfectly fine letting me go off and live by myself, with you and Natasha, or Bruce, or Steve…"

Clint held up a hand. "If you and Steve are really…you know, a thing, then I thoroughly doubt I'd be okay with you two living together."

"Clint, he's about as celibate as a nun."

"I don't care."

Katniss rolled her eyes. "I love you, but I really don’t care for your opinion, I'm moving into Avengers Tower regardless. It’s the right option; I’m still with you guys, but I’m not having to be within Fury’s vicinity…well, ever. Plus, Tony was the one who practically begged me to move in with him, he said Pepper needs company. Don't know who Pepper is, suppose I'll figure that out when I get there. And Bruce is going, Steve's place is two blocks away, it all works out perfectly. You can't deny that."

"You'll love Pepper," Natasha piped up, to which Clint shot her a glare at. "What? She will; if I could learn to love her, I know Katniss can."

"You're supposed to be helping me fight this, you know," Clint responded.

Katniss hopped up from her spot on the bed, resting her hand on Clint's shoulder. She rolled all over her weight onto her stronger look, tilting her head as she gave him a knowing look. "Face it, you know you're not going to be able to overpower me and Natasha," she said knowingly. Natasha chuckled behind her, the sound of papers rustling as she turned them present.

Clint sighed. "When do we have to move you in," he grumbled.

"Tony's having my very few possessions moved himself; you won't have to lift a finger."

Clint rolled his eyes, groaning. "Lucky me; other fathers nearly break their back trying to help their children move into a tiny college dorm, whereas I don't have to do a thing as my child moves in with her lunatic of a billionaire godfather in the heart of New York."

Katniss shot a smile at her father, clapping her hand back down on his shoulder as to give some sort of emphasis. "Are we shooting whenever I get done with my afternoon session?" she asked, raising an eyebrow hopefully.

"Sure thing," he grumbled, cracking the slightest bit of a smile.

Returning the smile still, Katniss bounded out of the room as she set off for some unknown destination. Clint's eyes followed after her even after the door slammed shut behind her, his eyes watching her through the glass of the window until she was completely out of sight. Natasha was already looking back down at the folder, interested more in its contents than Clint's longing gazes. "Shooting?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

Clint's head snapped over to where Natasha was. "Yeah, she's been asking me about going back into the gym and training since her legs are getting better. I figured she's just like you in the sense that she won't take no for an answer until it's become a yes." Natasha clucked her tongue in response, turning one of the pages in her file. It was clear that she was still disinterested in the conversation. "I assume this still has something to do with becoming a SHIELD agent?" he tried again, picking up on Natasha's halfhearted responses as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Natasha shrugged one of her shoulders. "Don't know, she hasn't brought it up again since we talked about it after the meeting with Fury. Personally, I'm hoping that spending time with Tony will either make her forget all about it, or she'll just follow in his footsteps being a consultant, only being called when she's needed. It's—"

"Safer?" Clint finished for her, Natasha's eyes lifting off the pages of the file to meet his. "Fine with me." Natasha was already focused back in on her files, and Clint caught the sigh rising up in his throat before it could escape. Instead, he sat down awkwardly on the edge of the bed Katniss had left empty, staring at his feet.

Finally, Natasha spoke up, her voice impassive. "So you were compromised?" His head shot up at the sound of that, his expression bewildered. She could feel his eyes burning holes into her and she raised her head slightly, one of her eyebrows arched. "It's what the file says," she said, gesturing towards the folder in her hands. "You were compromised at the beginning of all this, it was why Fury dragged her into it initially."

Clint swallowed hard. The word compromised brought a sour taste to his mouth as he thought back on what he'd best tried to lock up the second he'd come to in that containment unit. The visions that had flooded his mind whenever Loki had gained control of him were ones that he couldn't tell the difference between artificial and legitimate. All of the horrible things that he'd shoved back to the deepest and darkest corner of his mind, all of the missions gone wrong, his past, the guilt he harbored even though some things were beyond his control rose back to the surface. Loki had toyed and taunted him with one particular thing there in his mind—Natasha. Loki was always there in his head, serving as his conscience and teasing the idea of her death over and over again, how he couldn't find her, how he'd betrayed her by stopping his search. He used the small inkling of hope that she was alive and turned it all on its head, telling her that if she wasn't dead, he'd be the one to kill her. The images of her mangled body, her dying, all of the worst-case scenarios he could have ever imagined were implanted in his memory by Loki, and even though they weren't real, they  _felt_  real. They were still vivid, even after Katniss had broken the mind control.

He must have frozen up or visibly shaken at the thought of those dark memories laughing in his face, because when he zoned back in he could see Natasha's face twisted in concern, aiming her frown at him. "Hey," she said softly. "What happened?" Clint started to respond with nothing, but Natasha cut him off faster than he could form the words. "No, you told me that we would talk about this over two weeks ago when we were in New York. It's later."

"Natasha, it's nothing—" Clint insisted, but again, his protests were shot down.

"You aren't sleeping," she accused, closing the case file and setting it down in between her leg and the arm of the chair. "I know you're not sleeping, the bags under your eyes are large enough to tote Stark's ego around in. Whatever happened to you is bothering you." Natasha rose from the chair, crossing the room and making room for herself next to the statue Clint had turned himself into. She kept her eyes on him, even though he was doing his best to avoid her by staring down at the tiling on the floor.

She nudged him with her elbow. "Clint," she whispered. "Tell me."

"It was you." Clint's voice was faint and broken, like someone had knocked the wind out of his chest. "He…he was inside my head, and he used everything about you to his advantage. We're not supposed to have weaknesses, Tasha, but he knew you were mine. And he tortured me with it." He rubbed his jaw slowly, keeping his hand slightly over his mouth.

Natasha's hand moved from her lap to his, resting there lightly on his knee. "Who did?" she tried, her voice barely above a whisper. Clint was unresponsive. "Was it Loki?" She took the immediate stiffening of his upper body as confirmation.

"That…that scepter," he said, his voice still thick and strangled. "It's got some sort of power in it, possesses whoever he touches the heart of. Fucker was inside my head, controlling me like his own little personal minion. It happened with Selvig, it happened with Katniss' friend Gale. He's there, inside of your head. And he's not just telling you what to do either." Clint's head turned, facing Natasha. "He brought every horrible memory to the forefront of my mind, meddling around and making sure your thoughts are the darkest that they've ever been. I did everything I could to keep it locked away from him but he was in control, he had the key. He used you against me, used every bit of knowledge I had on you and the others to make his game plan. He…he made me see things, made me  _feel_  things and I can't shake him. He's been out of there for weeks now and it's still like he's trapped in my head."

"Clint," Natasha said. "You're…you couldn't control it, you couldn't do anything about it."

"The visions of you dying?" he snarled. "The, the thoughts, the images, all of it felt real, Natasha. He got off on the sick, twisted pain I was in; he played around in there, planted thoughts of  _me_  killing you. I could have sworn that I had actually done it by the time he was done with me. Loki wanted me to kill our daughter and I almost accomplished that. So no, Nat, I couldn't control it and I couldn't do anything about it, but I'm here now in complete control and it's still haunting me."

Natasha stared at him, taking a deep breath. She exhaled deeply, her hand feeling as though it weighed a thousand pounds as it rested there on his leg. "I don't want to hurt you, Nat, I…I can't hurt you."

One of Clint's hands found its way to Natasha's face, his fingers shakily sweeping over her jaw line. "You couldn't hurt me," Natasha replied, unsure of who she was trying to reassure of that, herself or Clint. "You won't. I know you; you're not going to hurt."

"How can you be so sure? I'm not the same person, Tash; even before he took control of me, I was different. I didn't think I was capable of a lot of different things, but here we are. If I'm dangerous enough to be the reason Phil died, if I'm dangerous enough to almost put an arrow through my own flesh and blood, how can you be so sure I won't hurt you, kill you?"

"You're not a monster, Clint. Loki's the monster, not you." She sounded slightly more confident in her answer that time around, squeezing Clint's knee gently. Leaning in closer to him, she whispered something that was barely audible, loud enough for him to only just hear. "You're not a monster."

* * *

Trudging all the way up to the cafeteria proved to be some sort of challenge, even if she had taken the elevator up. Katniss was close to out of breath by the time she reached her destination, quick to dive into the closest chair and take a breather. She knew that her afternoon session would be rough after her little journey; Maxfield had told her to avoid any rigorous activity between sessions since it would tire her out quickly. It wasn't her fault; she hadn't known that walking to and from an elevator would be so exhausting.

"Did you finally make a run for it?" came a voice from in front of her. Opening her eyes, Bruce was standing there in front of her with a rather amused smirk on his face.

Straightening up in the chair, she rolled her eyes as a low grunt fell out of her lips. "Well I was pretty surprised when no one yanked my ass back, but I guess you could say that, yeah," she replied. Katniss gestured out to the chair opposite hers, motioning for him to sit down.

"How's therapy?" he asked, sitting down across from her and setting his water bottle down on the table. Katniss shrugged.

"It's okay, I guess. I've got another session in a few hours and I'm hoping Maxfield will a) not be able to tell that I'm completely out of breath from wearing myself out, and b) tell me that it'll be my last session. As effective as it is, rehab is pretty boring when you think about it," she admitted, studying her hands.

"What are you going to do if you're not done tomorrow, come back or something?" Bruce kept firing question after question, his head looking over his shoulder at several of the people who were roaming around and getting something to eat.

Her eyebrows knitted together. "What do you mean, come back? I'm not going anywhere."

Bruce leaned back slightly, the expression on his face puzzled. "You’re going with us to New York on Wednesday to visit Coulson and then see Thor and Loki off. Did no one tell you that?" Katniss knew that the genuinely confused and taken aback look on her face should have answered that question good enough for him, but he continued on. "Yeah, uh, Fury's sending us all out on a Quinjet Wednesday morning to New York; we're all going to Coulson's grave and then Thor's headed back to Asgard. You're kind of included when it comes to team-related things, you know," he reminded her.

Katniss shook her head. "I know that, I just didn't expect for it to be this soon. I figured New York's still kind of stuck up in the air after what happened, that he doesn’t want us traipsing out into the public eye with so much media focus still on us."

"Guess he assumes that if we're all not wearing our completely ridiculous costumes that people will pass us off as regular citizens."

"Everyone knows who Tony is, though," she brought up.

"Good point."

"And do Thor and Loki even know what regular clothes are, besides those capes and body armor?"

"I thoroughly doubt it."

"Agreed," Katniss muttered, drumming her fingers on the table top. "I don't know what I'll do if I’m not finished; maybe bat my eyelashes or have Natasha hold a dagger to his throat. I’m not looking to come back on the ship, and I _really_  don't want to have to pick up it back up in New York. I’ve grown fond of Maxfield."

It was Bruce's turn to be confused. "You're planning on staying in New York?" Katniss nodded as confirmation. "How did you manage to get clearance on that one?" he exclaimed, the beginnings of a smirk appearing across his face.

She shrugged one of her shoulders, smiling at him. "Didn’t make it up for debate. Dunno; probably didn’t see any resistance thanks to the fact that my billionaire godfather will be my housemate, and I guess Clint and Natasha both like the idea of having me in New York where I'm still available to them and not in the thicket of insanity. Anywhere is better than Twelve, really," she quickly added on to her explanation, face scrunching up.

"So you're going to be living in Avengers Tower then?"

Katniss grinned. "Sure am. _Roomie_."

Bruce smiled back at her, a comfortable silence settling over them. She hadn't really had any one on one time with Bruce since before the events New York; she'd either been bombarded with other company—namely Clint, Steve or Tony—or making some headway in her therapy appointments, and he'd either been off in a lab somewhere, possessed by the Big Guy or doing his best to blend in with the wallpaper as Tony tap danced his way through dinner. It was finally nice to talk to him without one of the others trying to gain dominance in a conversation or someone breathing down her neck. She barely had enough alone time with herself, much less anyone else.

He interrupted her racing train of thought, startling her a bit. "This is kind of the end of the beginning, you know?" he thought aloud. She glanced over at him; he was staring down at his own hands on the table. "I mean, we all sort of started something here and now it's coming to a close. We're all going our different ways; it's a new day. New era. A new beginning."

Katniss pondered that, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I guess," she insinuated after a pause. "That was pretty deep, you know that?"

"Guess I do now." He was quiet for a moment, before speaking up again. "Hey…" he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I just, you know, wanted to apologize for everything that happened. Me yelling at you, thinking that I wasn't on your side. You know I'll always have your back, over any of theirs." He then leaned in a little bit closer, preparing to tell her something evidently confidential. "Don't tell Tony or anything, but you're the only one of them that keeps me calm and doesn't annoy the living hell out of me."

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," she chimed. "I'm sorry too. For pissing you off enough and all that other stuff. Sometimes I do forget that everyone's not fighting against me, it’s sort of just bad habit at this point."

"Understandable," Bruce said. "What with my temper problem, I don't have much room to talk, but you're right about that. Not everyone is fighting against you; most the time they're all fighting beside you. It's just hard to tell the difference sometimes; I get it."

Katniss offered him a small smile. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

"You do that," he replied teasingly. He then rose from his chair, her eyes following him the whole time.

"Where are you off to?" she inquired. One of his hands reached out for his water bottle, holding it close to his chest as he glanced around the room once more.

"Back to the lab to help Tony with some clean up and then probably to get all my ducks in a row," Bruce responded. "The Helicarrier is pretty large and if I've lost something, best to know that now so I have time tomorrow to go on a wild goose chase looking for it."

"I'll keep on the lookout for anything," Katniss joked, giving him a mock salute.

"Thanks. And you remind me once we get to New York to take you out for pizza. I think you might like it even more than a burger," he declared, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he slowly began to walk backwards in the direction of the temp lab. Katniss' eyebrows furrowed together.

"What's pizza?" she called out after him.

Bruce laughed. "That's something I guess you'll just have to figure out!"

She supposed he was right on that one.


	25. wednesday morning

New York was a different place than Katniss remembered.

What she remembered was fire raining down, rubble scattered all over the streets, a haunting silence that was still filled with the echoes of sirens and screams, people running in every direction as they tried to take cover, and the skies filled with alien aircrafts. She could still hear the screeches of those Chitauri as they zipped around corners, flying through buildings and leaving trails of destruction everywhere they went. The acrid smell of smoke, the sweat pouring down her face and neck, the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, her arm slowly starting to feel like jelly with the repetitive aim-fire method she'd developed for herself. Natasha landing on that car. Gale falling to his death. Steve being that close to her, kissing her. Tony shooting up into the sky in the wormhole and then everything going black—all of it was clearly etched into her memory as the Quinjet zipped over the sky line, bringing all those memories back to the forefront of her mind.

She hardly recognized the city that was below them, and she could feel everyone's gaze returning to her as she gaped out the window in awe. It seemed normal, almost beautiful from above without aliens pouring from the sky. There was a sort of peace that came along with seeing Manhattan for the first time for what it really was: just another city on the map. The sounds of the birds chirping, sun shining and a small breeze twisting and twirling past them, all of it was so docile and relaxing. If this was how New York really and truly was, then maybe there was hope for moving past all of what had happened. Maybe she'd stop flinching every time she heard a car horn or saw a bird flying overhead.

"Guys, it's down here!" came Tony Stark's typically loud mouth from the other end of the graveyard, which earned him a glare from Natasha that was strong enough to knock him into a grave of his own.

"Jesus Christ, Stark, have you ever heard of respecting the dead?" grumbled Clint, hands shoved deep into his pockets as they walked past the rows and rows of headstones. Katniss couldn't help but to take in each individual grave marker, reading the names as best she could as Bruce shuffled her along. There was word about them being on a time limit; clearly, the Avengers couldn't stand around in a graveyard for longer than five minutes but there was no issue on SHIELD's end with them strolling around in the open as Thor took Loki back to Asgard. Things like that baffled Katniss.

It had taken a great deal of batting eyelashes and empty threats in order for her to get out of her last bit of physical therapy. Fury wasn't willing to budge on it, but thankfully Dr. Maxfield had deemed her well enough to return to everyday life. The only problem with that was Katniss had no inkling of an idea as to what everyday life was. Her everyday life had been shattered the minute that Fury nabbed her from Twelve. Now, she was left to start a new one, almost like Bruce had pointed out in the cafeteria that night; it was a new day. A new page in a new book, and there were endless possibilities now on how to fill them.

"I'm very familiar with the concept, thank you," Tony said, his voice slightly quieter as they grew closer to him, his arms folded over his chest. "But, as Cyclops told us, we have to get on with the program, and as you can see, this is one monstrosity of a graveyard." He swiveled around, his arms extended as he gestured around him. "We'd be here for hours if we decided to look for Coulson one by one, or worse, spread out."

Tony's eyes narrowed as he set his gaze dead on Steve, who had suggested that idea in the first place. Steve's hand shot up in innocence, and Natasha rolled her eyes. "Tony, you act as though you have some large itinerary lined up when you know you have nothing else better to do today, get over yourself," she growled.  _Ah, yes_ , Katniss thought _, the Avengers in a graveyard early on a Wednesday probably wasn't the best idea Fury's had. But, if this is normal, then I can definitely get used to this._

Katniss' eyes locked on the headstone in front of her, reading to herself. _Phillip J. Coulson, loving friend and mentor._ A pang struck her in the chest as she thought back to the conversation that she'd had with Coulson; what was probably the first and only time she'd really talked to him. "You know who you are," his voice echoed in her head. "Give it some time. You will."

Natasha's voice cut through the memory of Coulson's, reading aloud the quote that had been added on underneath his name and the dates. "We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death." She sounded entirely too calm as she read it, the silence consuming all of them. "David Sarnoff," she tacked on at the end, most likely an attempt to dispel the awkwardness around them.

"You know who that quote's by?" Tony asked, baffled.

She shot him another look, and Tony shrouded away in silence once more. Thor's booming voice was quick to pick back up—if they hadn't been standing at Coulson's grave, it would have been a hilarious sight watching his large figure in that even larger costume bend down and place the flowers that they'd all collectively decided on—sounding rather distraught. It went over Katniss' head initially, but the realization that he'd been close to Coulson and had considered him more of a friend than anyone else on the team sank in as his words seemed to echo. "Friend Son of Coul, you shall be truly missed."

"Uh…yeah, what Shakespeare said," Tony uttered out quickly. It was evident that he was trying not to come off too susceptible, or hell, even cry. Katniss had never seen Tony even close to showing such emotion before, and she was a little scared the more she thought about it. Tony was almost like Clint and Natasha; good at showing no emotion, even when it was getting to him.

"He would have been really happy," Natasha mumbled. "Seeing us all together. It was what he wanted, what he believed in."

There was more silence after that, the leaves rustling around some of the trees that stood over the graveyard. It was obvious that no one knew what to say or what to do; Coulson had been their biggest supporter and believer the whole time, but there was a lack of words in everyone else's mouths. Katniss just stared intently at the dates on the grave, trying to keep her own mind off of the waterworks threatening to rise. Today was supposed to be a happy day. Today was the day that things truly started over, a day of rebirth. Crying over Coulson wouldn't do him any good, it wouldn't save him or bring him back. Tony readjusted his sunglasses, pushing them up higher on the bridge of his nose. "Well children, shall we?" he finally said, pointing towards the array of vehicles on the opposite end of the graveyard.

Fury was all for sticking undercover, and he'd pulled out all of the stops in order to make sure that they remained as incognito as they possibly could. He'd made sure that they had a SHIELD car, Steve's motorcycle, Tony's sports car—Tony was a little hard to work with, eventually accepting that making Tony unrecognizable or forcing him into doing such wasn't going to work, and they were going to have to hope for the best. The rest of them, minus Thor and Loki, were all wearing street clothes and looked more normal than Katniss had expected them all to. Clambering into the back of the SHIELD-assigned car with Bruce, she saw Thor marching off with Loki, who had been extracted from the car only moments before. "Where are they going?" she asked.

Bruce shrugged. Clint, who had slid into the driver's seat with Natasha right behind him, spoke up. "They're flying. Thor claims it's faster, and frankly, you'd have to drug me before I willingly escorted around his bastard of a brother," he explained.

"Definitely not bitter, are we?" Natasha said dryly. Clint growled and the car lurched to life, speeding off right on the heels of Tony's sports car.

The entire car ride to Central Park consisted of Katniss lounging in the backseat with Bruce, the two of them animatedly conversing with Clint and Natasha and the radio playing in the background. For a moment, Katniss forgot that the pair were a couple of assassins who were completely capable of killing anyone and anything, had done years of espionage and missions and could appear to be machines at times. She wondered if this was the real and true version of Clint and Natasha; laidback, chatting away and ignoring the fact that they did have one of the most demanding jobs on the planet. They were just people. Bruce interrupted her train of thought, leaning over and tapping her on the arm. "Are you going back with me and Tony after this?" he asked.

Katniss shook her head. "No, I'm only giving Tony my bags. Steve and I are—we're going somewhere," she admitted sheepishly. "I'm just not sure where." Clint, true to his code name, was watching her through the mirror like a hawk. "Oh relax, it's just for the afternoon."

Bruce was oddly enough quick to side with her, Katniss watching him with a rather surprised look on her face. "Admit it Barton, you and Natasha are off on some date after this too," he teased. Katniss found herself laughing and Bruce's audacity, clapping him on the shoulder as she giggled. Clint's face was set in a stony expression, and if her eyes weren't mistaking her, he was blushing a little.

"We don't date," Natasha interjected coldly.

"Sure you don’t," Katniss sang out.

The car rolled to a stop in front of a small bridge there in Central Park, everyone climbing out as Thor and Loki strolled on through to the middle of the circle. They were all quick to follow behind, Steve shooting Katniss a small smile in reassurance. She hadn't seen Loki since that day in New York; what with her being so preoccupied with getting better and being forced to watch Tony play charades with more unwilling participants from her bed, she hadn't even thought about dropping by where they were holding Loki prisoner. It was probably a good idea, because the minute her eyes honed in on him, she felt her blood run cold. There were all sorts of suppressed feelings of fear and anger rising inside of her, and it took a moment of counting her breaths and focusing on the fact that she was alright to keep from killing him or throwing up.

They all stood in a circle, watching and waiting. Someone opened up a briefcase, Bruce standing over it with metal tongs as he placed the Tesseract into the container that Thor had a tight grip on. Katniss looked around at all of the people walking by, hardly noticing their presence there. She found it a little puzzling, but didn't question it. Her gaze then went around the circle, taking in everyone's expression. Tony had a smug smirk on his face, arms crossed and eyes locked dead on Loki. Clint and Natasha were standing close to each other, Natasha whispering something into Clint's ear that made him smile. Steve, as usual, was standing with his hands folded neatly behind his back, watching on closely. Bruce backed away from Thor and Loki, Thor giving him a small nod as he himself made sure to make eye contact with all of his teammates.

It happened rather quickly; Thor turned the handle on the container that held the Tesseract, and it was like the heavens opened. For a moment, Katniss thought that more Chitauri would come flying out, but instead, a large beam of light struck down and took Thor and Loki up. The wind blew her hair straight back; eyes squinted as she looked up to try to find where the pillar of light had come from. As soon as it had arrived, it was gone, nothing standing in the place of where Thor and Loki had once been.  _It's over._

Clint and Natasha turned into the unofficial bag deliverers, pulling bags out of the car and handing them to Tony and Bruce. Katniss stood there idly, not sure of what she was supposed to do. She watched as Clint pulled her duffel bag out of the trunk, internally chuckling at the fact that they'd given her such a big bag for her belongings. She knew that there was hardly anything in there with the exception of minimal clothes changes, one of Clint's quivers filled with arrows and her bow. He handed it off to Tony before turning to face her.

She was slightly taken aback at how fast Clint pulled her into a hug, but she was quick to return the gesture. "Love you, kiddo," he whispered into her ear, pulling away a few seconds later.

"Love you too," she replied, catching sight of Steve lounging up against his motorcycle and waiting on her.

"What time are you getting back to the Tower, I'll make sure Happy knows to look out for you?" Tony called out. Katniss just shrugged, she still had no idea what Steve was planning on doing. "Right, I'll just have him camp out downstairs, sounds like a plan." He shot his goddaughter a thumbs up and a wink before clambering into his sports car with Bruce.

Right as she started over to where Steve was, she felt a hand tug on her arm, turning her around. Katniss found herself face to face with Natasha, who had a small smile on her own face. "Give Tony hell," she said softly. "And…for you." Natasha extended her other hand, dropping something small into Katniss' hand. When Katniss opened her fist, she saw a small rectangle pendant resting in her hand. Her fingers ran over the edges, finding a place to pull it open. Inside were two pictures on the farther panels, the one in the middle empty. One of the photos was of Clint's arrows, the other of Natasha's utility belt buckle.

"I'm sorry it can't be actual pictures of us, it's just not safe even if you weren't going out into the field," Natasha apologized. "Maybe if I can do some digging and find baby pictures of me and Clint—"

"It's…it's fine. Really, it's beautiful," Katniss insisted. "Thank you."

She pulled Natasha into an unexpected hug, not realizing that she could probably get killed for making such a bold move until she already had her arms wrapped tight around Natasha's neck. "You're, uh, you're welcome," Natasha replied awkwardly, the two of them separating almost instantly after. "Have fun with Steve, alright?"

"Have fun with Clint." Katniss gave her mom a small smile, mouthing the words 'I love you' to her, since she knew Natasha wouldn't say them out loud. Natasha winked, turning on her heel and clicking back off to the car where Clint was waiting on her.

There was a newfound spring in her step as Katniss pocketed the necklace, beaming as she approached Steve. "You ready?" he asked.

"Born."

Steve's motorcycle frightened her a little; there was really no denying that. But she had told herself that living in this new world would require warming up to all of these things, and if Steve was used to it, then she knew she was behind. He mounted the motorcycle, balancing it so Katniss could climb on. "Alright," he began. "When she goes, she goes, and I don't want you falling off, so hold on." Katniss swung her leg over the motorcycle, adjusting herself on the seat before wrapping her arms around Steve's waist.

Resting her chin down on his shoulder, she smiled at him. "Gotcha."

The sound of the motorcycle roaring to life startled her a little, her grip on Steve tightening as he lifted his feet off the ground and they shot off through the streets. Katniss could feel the terror settling into an adrenaline, one that she was more than content with as they rode through Central Park. There was something about the wind blowing her hair back behind her, unable to hear anything but the sound of the air rushing in her ears. It almost felt like flying, in her mind. She grew more comfortable with every minute that passed, her locked arms loosening a little so she had a little more freedom to lean back and embrace the sun that was spilling over the tops of the trees. This was what life was, not the dark dingy past of living in Twelve or being cooped up on the Helicarrier.

Katniss' eyes had been closed for so long that when the motorcycle finally stopped, she hardly recognized where they were. Steve kicked the breaks down, sliding off with ease and extending his hand for Katniss. She took it graciously, softly muttering her thanks. "You okay?" he asked her.

She was half-paying attention to him, half-paying attention to the vibrant greenery around her, the shade of a tree in the middle of the park with a small blanket sprawled out underneath it. Her eyes met his, twinkling as the sunlight caught a hold of them. It didn't take long for her to think of her answer to his simple question; even though he had meant it for one thing alone, she had taken it in as a whole. Smiling up at him, she nodded. "Yeah, I think I am."


End file.
